Eternal Burning 



A SCANDAL 



AGAINST THE ALMIGHTY. 



By JOHN KENT. 



TRENTON, N. J.: 
MacCuullisii & QuiOLEY, Printers, 16 E. State St. 

1880. 



^ 



^1 *^'^ 



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Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1879, by 

JOHN KENT, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 

All Rights r'^served. 






PREFACE 



Bj presenting this to tlie world the author purposes to 
show that the doctrine of Eternal Burning does not belong 
to the Divine Word; and that, although the intrinsical 
immortality of man was, even in Bible times, believed and 
taught by all other nations, the Jews, the people of God, 
did not believe in the immortality of man, except through 
the resurrection; and, also, that Christ and His Apostles 
taught and proved that upon the resurrection only, depended 
the future existence of those who had passed away. 

Furthermore, the author purposes to show, independently 
of all the argument that is generally presented in opposition 
to Eternal Torment, that there is no ground for such a doc- 
trine. He purposes to show that the evidence adduced to 
sustain this doctrine, is ample, of itself, not only to condemn 
it, but also to prove the contrary; and, that the evidence 
against it, aside from this, is overwhelming, and not only to 
the effect that such a doctrine is contrary to the realities of 
the Scriptures, but that it is a Scandal against the Almighty. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The doctrine ot Eternal Earning has become so firmly 
rooted in the mind of man, that all the sects of Christen- 
dom, with few exceptions, whilst claiming to worship the 
Almighty as a God of Justice, of Mercy, and of Love, — a God 
Who so loved even fallen — sinful humanity, that He gave His 
only begotten Son to die for them, teach that He is a God 
of Insatiable Vengeance, Whose w^rath nothing but the 
Eternal Burning of the wicked in a Lake of Fire and Brim- 
stone can appease. They teach that He is never satisfied 
with punishing them, for they are always being punished; 
and that the narrowest limit to His Vengeance is, having 
them always Burning in Hell. 

This I pronounce a damnable heresy, and claim, as the 
Scriptures teach, that Death is the result of Sin, — that the 
punishment of Sin is Death, and that the Everlasting Death 
will be the Eveilasting Punishment; that the First Death is 
the result of Adam's sin, and that the Second Death will be 
the result of each sinner's own sins. '' For as in Adam all 
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 

"IN ADAM ALL DIE." This is the First Death, the 
result of the first transgression. Yet, '^ IN CHRIST 
SHALL ALL BE MADE ALIVE; " and then the question 
will be settled as to who shall live the Second, or Eternal 
Life, and who shall die the Second, or Everlasting Death. 

Now, be it remembered and ever kept in view, that 
upon the assertion that Death is not Death, is based this 
unholy doctrine of Eternal Burning in a Hell of Fire and 



6 

Brimstone. For, in the face of the Scriptures to the effect 
that the Second Death shall be the last of the wicked, the 
Advocates of Eternal Burning assert, with the greatest 
audacity, that it will not be a Death at all, but an Eternal 
Life. Yea, according to their teaching it will be an Eternal 
Life, by far, more momentous than the Eternal Life of the 
Saint. Yes, were it true, that which they teach as the 
punishment of the wicked would be ten thousand times 
more to be dreaded than the reward of the Saint is to be 
desired. 

But now that those passages which are presented as teach- 
ing or supporting the idea of an Eternal Burning of the 
wicked in a Hell of Fire and Brimstone, mav come before the 
mind in all their o^lowins: brilliancy, I have o-athered them 
toofether, and assure the reader that, thousch he mav reo:ard 
them as favoring the idea of Eternal Torment, if he will lay 
aside prejudice, and with me, follow the current of Divine 
Truth, he shall see that the blinding blaze of Eternal Burn- 
ing vanishes from sight; and that, instead of Insatiable 
Venofeance beins: an attribute of God, such teachino^ is a 
Scandal against Him. 

So now, while prejudice and falsehood grasp each other's 
hand, while bigotry sneers with brainless contempt, and 
blind sectarianism staggers on its way, let us face this ques- 
tion in its unclothed reality, and let the Scriptures decide 
for all. 



ETERNAL BURNING 

A 

SCANDAL AGAINST THE ALMIGHTY. 



NoWy commencing with Matthew, XXYth chapter, at 
31st verse, we read : 

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all 
the holy angels with him, (but not before,) then shall he sit 
upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gath- 
ered all nations : and he shall separate them one from 
another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats : 
And he shall set the sheep on his rigVit hand, but the goats 
on the left. Then shall the King s-aj unto them on his 
right hand. Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the King- 
dom prepared for you from the foundation of the world : 
For I was a hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, 
and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me 
in : leaked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye visited 
me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the 
righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee 
a hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ? or 
naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or 
in prison, and came unto thee ? And the King shall answer 
and say unto them. Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye 
have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them 
on the left hand. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting 
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels : For I was a hun- 
gered, and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave 



8 

me no drink : I was a stranger, and ve took me not in : 
naked, and ve clothed me not : sick, and in prison, and ye 
visited me not. Then shall thev also answer bim, savinor 
Lord, when saw we thee a hungered, or athirst, or a 
stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not min- 
ister unto thee ? Then shall he answer them, saying, 
Yerily I say unto you. Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of 
the least of these, ve did it not to me. And these shall 2:0 
away into everlasting punishment ; but the righteous into 
life eternal." 

Here we have the two facts upon which the whole ques- 
tion rests, squarely presented before us. The righteous 
shall enter into Life Eternal, but the wicked shall go away 
into Everlasting Punishment. 

When, therefore, all shall have been assembled before 
the bar of judgment, and the wicked, then, and there, con- 
demned and sentenced, the onlv thins; remainino: will be 
the execution of that sentence; and hence the saying, 
" These shall 2:0 awav into everlastins^ punishment." 

This points us to the XXth chapter of Eevelation, 14th 
and 15th verses, where is shown the spot where this sentence 
will be executed, and the manner in which it will be done : 

*'And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. 
This is the second death. And whosoever was not found 
written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." 
Hence we see that the sentence which will be pronounced 
upon the wicked, at the judgment, will be executed by 
their being cast into the lake of tire, which, though we are 
called upon by the fallacious to believe will constitute an 
Eternal Life, the Apostle declares, "is the Second Death." 
And so conspicuously does the ascription of Eternal Life to 
the righteous display the difference between them and the 
wicked, that we cannot fail to see that the wicked shall 
suffer that Perishino- which those who believe on the Son of 
God will escape, through the gift of Eternal Life. 



9 

The present Lite ot the Saint is Temporal, but the next will 
be Eternal. The Death which the sinner dies here, is but 
for a time, but the Second Death will be Everlasting. If all 
shall live Eternally, why talk so much about Eternal Life ? 
If the wicked, as the righteous, shall live Eternally, this talk 
about Eternal Life is not consistency. Therefore, to make it 
appear that the wicked and righteous both live Eternally, 
reduces this particular discrimination of the Scriptures 
which ascribes the Second, or Eternal Life to the one, and the 
Second, or Everlasting Death to the other, to nothing other 
than foolishness ; which, however, it is evident, is the best 
they can do in favor of the terrible cruelty with which they 
charo'e the Divine Beino:. 



WHERE THE BEAST AND THE FALSE PROPHET ARE. 

But now we will turn to the XlXth chapter of Revelation ; 
and that we may embrace all that bears upon the subject, 
commence at the 19th verse : "And I saw the beast, and 
the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together 
to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against 
his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false 
prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he 
deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and 
them, that worshiped his image. These both were cast 
alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the 
remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon 
the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth : and all 
the fowls were filled with their flesh." How significant the 
phrase, " Cast into a lake of fire burning with brimstone"? 
How plainly it shows that they were destroyed ? It is 
equivalent to saying that they were not destroyed with the 



10 

sword, but that, seemingly more terrible, they were captured 
alive, and then destroyed in a lake of fire and brimstone. 

But, say the Advocates of Eternal Torment, They were not 
destroyed, for the next chapter teaches the contrary. This, 
no doubt, will be the general cry ; for this phrase, " Where 
the beast and the false prophet are," is a central pillar of 
their fabric of Eternal Torment. But while they consider 
me bold for saying they were destroyed, they had best 
pause a moment and see if they stand upon so sure a 
foundation as they might at first suppose. For, beginning 
at the 7th verse of the XXth chapter, we read: "And when 
the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of 
his prison. And shall go out to deceive the nations which 
are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to 
gather them together to battle : the number of whom is as 
the sands of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of 
the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and 
the beloved city : and fire came down from God out of 
heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived 
them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where 
the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented 
day and night for ever and ever." 

This, as all must see, covers the whole ground, and pre- 
sents the truth in its simple reality. Yet, in all this, there 
is but one word that conflicts with the foregoing assertion, 
and, that it may appear in its most conspicuous form, I will 
again repeat the verse in which it is contained : "And the 
devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and 
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are^'^ and 
shall be tormented da}^ and night for ever and ever." 

In this verse are presented two facts, which, though par- 
ticularly distinct, are, nevertheless, confounded by those 
who are particularly anxious to perpetuate the doctrine of 
Eternal Burning. For the torment spoken of in this verse, 

*Are is the word referred to. 



11 

is particularly confined to the devil ; for, " The devil that 
deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, 
where," it is said, '' the beast and the false prophet are, and 
shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." 

Now, if John had intended to convey such an idea as that 
the wicked should be tormented as the devil was, AYhy did 
he not say that the devil that deceived them, and all whose 
names were not found written in the book of life, were cast 
into the lake of fire and brimstone, and should be tormented 
day and night for ever and ever ? Surely, if he had intended 
to convey such an idea, he would have thus expressed it ! 
But no; having no such an idea to convey, he tells us that 
the devil shall be punished for ever and ever: and then, 
after telling us all that he knows about torment for ever and 
ever, he tells us what shall become of the wicked ; that is, 
he tells us that t\\Qy shall be punished with the Second Death 
by being cast into the lake of fire. Therefore, this being 
tormented day and night for ever and ever, is the punishment 
which will be inflicted upon Satan only, Avho is a super- 
natural being ; and, being such, we cannot determine as to 
what amount of punishment he shall receive, though it be 
for ever and ever in a Lake of Fire and Brimstone. But if the 
doctrine that, at death, the wicked are sent to a Hell of Fire 
and Brimstone be correct, and that the devil is there as Head 
and Chief, and can exist in, and enjoy such a place for six 
thousand years, certain it is that his change of residence 
shall not amount to much, notwithstanding the for ever 
and ever. 

But how ridiculous, and how false does this fact, that the 
devil shall be punished in a lake of fire and brimstone, make 
the teaching of those who tell us that the wicked are sufter- 
ing, and the devil rejoicing in a Hell of Fire and Brimstone ? 
Surely, as the former is positively true, the hitter is posi- 
tively false ! 

Now, having thus separated the devil from humanity, and 
shown that it is not mankind, but he only, who " shall be 



12 

tormented day and night forever and ever," the question rests 
with the beast and the false prophet. For, say they, " The 
devil was east into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the 
beast and false prophet are." But this is a bold assertion; 
this is a sand}' foundation to build so lofty a fabric upon ; 
for the translators have not told us that the original said, 
" Where the beast and the false prophet are," but they have 
put in the italics, and have thus shown us that it was not, 
" Where the beast and the false prophet are," but that it 
was something else. When, therefore, we remember that 
" the wicked shall be punished with everlasting destruction 
from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his 
power,'' we see that this something else, was — were cast into. 
Therefore we see that the devil Avas cast into the lake of fire 
and brimstone, into which the beast and false prophet had 
been cast: that is, (as all the facts connected with the case 
prove,) he was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, in 
which the beast and the false prophet had been destroyed. 
But it seems that, seeing that it conflicted with the doc- 
trine of Eternal Burning, the translators, instead of giving 
us the original, have, for it, as the italics show, substituted 
are ; and this is the best evidence that they could have given 
us to the contrary of are ; for it is emphatically to the effect 
that the orio-inal was not — "Where the beast and the false 
Ijrophet are;" which leaves it clearly positive that it was, 
Where the beast and the false prophet had been destroyed. 
Therefore we see, that instead of these passages which are 
held up as teaching Eternal Burning in the Flames of Hell, 
accomplisliing such an object, they utterly condemn the 
same. They not only do not prove that the erring of 
humanity shall be Eternally Burned in a Blazing Hell, but, 
if there were no other evidence to prove the contrary, they 
sliow the utter falsity of this doctrine, and indicate the cor- 
rupt source whence it originated, and the deceitful channel 
through which it has flown. 



13 



TORMENTED WITH FIRE AND BRIMSTONE. 

In XlVth chapter, 9th and lOth verses, it is said : " And 
the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If 
any man w^orship the beast and his image, and receive his 
mark in his forehead, or in his hand. The same shall drink 
of the wine of the wrath of God, w^hich is poured out with- 
out mixture into the cup of his indignation ; and he shall be 
tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the 
holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." True; and 
terrible torment it will be, just as the torment of those of 
whom the world was not worthy, was terrible torment, 
when they were sawn asunder, any more than that, if pos- 
sible, it will be more terrible. For, just as those martyrs 
were tormented in the presence of cruel men by being 
sawn asunder and thus killed, these, their murderers and 
the like, wdien cast into the lake of fire, will be tormented 
in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the 
Lamb, just as they had tormented the righteous in this life. 

And how plainly does it appear that the tormenting of 
the wicked will be, as was that of the martyrs, confined to 
a time, simply sufficient to accomplish their destruction ? 
For who could suppose that the holy angels and the Lamb 
shall stand for ever and ever witnessing the torment of the 
wicked ? Surely, all must answer, none ! And so it is man- 
ifest that those who shall be tormented bv beino- cast into a 
Lake of Fire and Brimstone, shall live for ever and ever, no 
more than those who were sawn asunder, who could not 
have lived for half an hour. 



14 



FOB EVEB AND EVEB. 



Again, tlie Word says : " The smoke of their torment 
ascendeth up for ever and ever.'' And how positively does 
this confirm the truth as taught by the Psalmist; that is, 
that " the wicked shall consume," that " into smoke shall 
they consume away " ? It positively reiterates his assertion. 

Now, concerning the consuming of this mighty mass of 
humanity, the Apostle said " the smoke of their torment 
ascendeth up for ever and ever," just as was common to 
say, " 0, king, live for ever," or, " Long live the king." 
Hence, just as for ever denoted a long life, as in the case 
of the king, so, for ever and ever was applicable to the com- 
plete consuming of this ponderous mass : that is, as in the 
case of the king, for ever meant live long, it meant smoke 
long in this. Hence, when the various ways in which the 
phrase, for ever, was used, are taken into consideration, the 
fact is obvious that for ever meant the time required to 
accomplish a work or object, which time, though indefinite 
and long, always terminated when the work was done, or 
the object accomplished. Not that a long smoking was as 
long as a long life, but that live for ever, meant live long, 
and that smoke for ever, meant smoke long."^ 

Again, after describing the last scene first, which, and 
similar were common with Scriptural writers, John describes 
that which had happened very remote from this ; that is, 
he goes back to time, and tells us that " those who worship 
the beast, have no rest day nor night," just as the Prophet 
had said concerning such, long before. For Isaiah had said : 
^' There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked;" which is 

*With regard to the phrase, For ever, the reader should remember that what it 
meant when used by the Prophets, by Christ aad the Apostles, is what is to be 
accepted as its meaning in the Scriptures, notwithstanding that it is made to repre- 
sent a different idea at the present day. For, though we say, for ever, and mean with- 
out end, it does not make the for ever, of the Bible, mean differentl}' from what it 
meant in the days of Moses and the Prophets. 



15 

but a slight difference of phraseology in expressing the 
same fact. 

Then the writer connects this with the 12th verse, and 
says : '' Here is the patience of the saints ; here are they 
that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of 
Jesus?" When had they the patience? Why, in the first 
life. When did they keep the commandments of God, and 
the faith of Jesus ? Why, — but is it necessary to answer ? 
Who that has knowledge enough to make him responsible, 
cannot see that it was among those who worshiped the 
beast, and their like — those wicked ones who had no rest 
day nor night ? And who, therefore, cannot see that instead 
of this supporting the doctrine of Eternal Burning, it clearly 
establishes the truth as declared by the Psalmist, that " the 
wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be 
as the fat of lambs;" that "they shall consume;" that 
"into smoke shall they consume away"? Whether they 
will see or not, they shall, " They shall," says David, " con- 
sume; into smoke shall they consume away." 



" THEIR WORM DIETH NOTy 

In Mark, IXth chapter, 43d and 44th verses read thus : 
"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for 
thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to 
go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quencJAcd : 
Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." 
But the fact that " the fire is not quenched," has no bear- 
ing upon the nature of the punishment of the wicked, as 
denoting continuation of punishment,* for the fire was pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels, and therefore, all that 



♦This term, Quenched, however, has muchtoilo with the punishment of the devil ; 
and, inasmuch as "all Scripture is . . . profitable," and, at least, .should not be 



16 

is left for consideration, is the plirase, •• Their worm dieth 
not.'*' 

Here we see that they are. not the worms, but that it is, 
^^ their worm." Therefore *• their worm " means their pun- 
ishment, and the fire that '• is not quenched,*' is the means 
by which they shall be punished. *• Their worm " does not 
mean them, any more than their punishment means them, 
but their worm and their punishment are one and the 
same. 

But, in reference to this question, Isaiah has preceded; 
and therefore, this is but, as it were, a quotation from 
him. But, then, what of the prophet ? TVliat has he said 
in regard to this matter ? Best would it be to answer : Let 
us see. 

His declaration is this : •* They shall go forth, and look 
upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed 
against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall 
their fire be quenched: and they shall be an abhorring* 
unto all flesh." 

Is'ow, if Isaiah had been a teacher of Eternal Burning, 
surely he would have said : " Look upon the Spirits of the 
men that have transgressed against me, and hear their 
wails and crpoans while suflerino: the Torment of Burnins: 
Flames."' But no I And how positively the opposite: 
'• Look upon the carcasses of the men that have trans- 
gressed against me," Far does he put this doctrine of 
Eternal Burning from him, and positively does he confirm 

misunderstood, it i3 proper to have a correct idea of his panishment, notwithstanding 
that it will be so very different from that of humanity's. 

The phrase, "N^erer shall be Quenched." though held up in so frightful a form by 
the Advocates of Eternal Burning, constitutes, nevertheless, quite a modification of 
their doctrine, even as regards the punishment of the devil, for, to Quench, means to 
totally extinguish. Therefore, though '* the fire never shall be quenched" until the 
object for which it was or shall be created, shall have been accomplished, it could be 
slackened to any extent whatever; and therefore, to the devil, who is a supernatural 
being, the torment spoken of may prove to be ten hundred million times less punish- 
ment than that which the Advocates of Eternal Burning so eagerly and earnestly 
Eroclaim as the offspring of Divine Justice, cherished and held in store for erring 
umanity, by a God of Love. 

*The righteous will behold them, as David says, consuming into smoke. A sick^ 
ening sight frill it be ; and therefore, an abhorring unto them. 



17 

the preceding, when he says : " They shall look upon the 
carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me." 

And now, having sifted the fact from the phraseology, it 
will be seen that the phrase, " Their worm dieth not," sim- 
ply denotes their Everlasting Death. For were it so that a 
man could be punished by being deprived of life for one 
day, the punishment would cease at the end of the day, 
and he would live again ; and if he were thus punished for 
a year, the result would be the same at the end of the year. 
But were he sentenced to unlimited death, the punishment 
would be Everlasting;- and therefore his punishment would 
not cease, notwithstanding that he were destroyed for ever; 
for this being destroyed for ever, would be his punishment. 



THERE SHALL BE WEEPING AND GNASHING OF TEETH. 

I shall now give attention to a part of the Xlllth chapter 
of Luke, commencing at the 24th verse: " Strive to enter 
in at the strait gate : for many, I say unto you, will seek to 
enter in, and shall not be able. When once the Master of 
the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and 
ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, 
saying. Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and 
say unto you, I know you not whence ye are : Then shall 
ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, 
and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I 
tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, 
all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and 
gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, 
and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and 
you yourselves thrust out." 

Here, in the 27th verse, we see that the workers of 
iniquity will be commanded to depart; and, in 28th verse, 
we see that " there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, 
2 



18 

when they shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all 
the prophets, in the kingdom of God, they themselves 
thrust out." 

If this passage did not sho\v an interval between their 
beins: cast out, and their final destruction, that misrht be over- 
looked, it would not be of importance enough to require 
particular notice, in connection with the subject of Eternal 
Torment. For, in realitv, it amounts to nothins: more than 
their giving of vent to their agony upon realizing their 
utterly lost condition, when commanded to depart as the 
workers of iniquity. 

Xow, that " there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, 
when they shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all 
the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and they themselves 
thrust out,'' surely, is nothing strange I For who would not 
weep and gnash their teeth, when once they were certain 
that they should be destroyed in a lake of fire and brim- 
stone ? Tea, who would not ! And will not such destruc- 
tion be terrible enousfh ? Surelv, it will! And the fact is 
obvious that there will be plenty of time between the com- 
mand to depart, and the final destruction, for this weeping 
and gnashing of teeth. 

So, as all that is mentioned in connection with this matter, 
precedes their being cast into the lake of fire, we see that 
all that this weeping and gnashing of teeth has to do with 
Eternal Burning, exists in the misled minds, or in the evil 
hearts of its advocates. 



THE RICH MAX AXD LAZARUS. 

In compliance with the arrangement which I have 
determined upon, that is, of fairly confronting all the pas- 
sages that are held up as teaching Eternal Torment, I 
now turn to the XYIth chapter of Luke ; and shall, before 



19 

proceeding to the consideration of any part of it, record all 
of the last paragraph of that chapter. 

"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in 
purple and line linen, and fared sumptuously every day: 
And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was 
laid at his gate, full of sores. And desiring to be fed with 
the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table : moreover 
the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, 
that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into 
Abraham's bosom : the rich man also died, and was buried; 
And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth 
Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he 
cried, and said. Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and 
send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his linger in water, 
and cool my tongue ; for I am tormented in this flame. 
But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime 
receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things : 
but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And 
besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf 
fixed : so .that they which would pass from hence to you 
cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from 
thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that 
thou wouldst send him to my father's house : For I have -Q-ve 
brethren ; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come 
into this place of torm^ent. Abraham saith unto him. They 
have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he 
said, Nay, father Abraham : but if one went unto them from 
the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they 
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per- 
suaded, though one rose from the dead." 

Having thus presented before the reader the passage as 
recorded in Luke, I shall first proceed with the considera- 
tion of it, as regards the accepting of it in a literal sense. 

The kind of discoursing seen in the 22d verse, is not 
uncommon in the Scriptures; and that which is there stated 



20 

is intended, simply to call the mind to that which is still 
future. For, according to the literal sense of the language, 
dead Lazarus, not his spirit, had been taken by the angels 
to Abraham's bosom; where, according to 23d verse, the 
Bich Man had seen him in immortal bloom ; whilst 31st 
verse saj^s that for him to have testified to the brethren of 
the Rich Man, he would have needed a resurrection from 
the dead. Therefore we see the bungling strategy con- 
nected with the idea of construing the passage so as to pre- 
sent a present reality of things. 

Twenty fifth verse : " But Abraham said. Son, remember 
that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and 
likewise Lazarus evil things ; but now he is comforted, and 
thou art tormented." This, accepted in a literal sense, is just 
as positively to the effect that for no other reason than that he 
had enjoyed the good things of this life for a few years, the 
Rich Man had been consigned to the torments of hell, as it 
is positively asserted, taking it literally, that " in hell he 
lifted up his eyes, being in torments." But what a wretched 
picture to represent the character of God ! What ! consign 
the Rich Man to the Flames of an Eternal Hell, and Lazarus 
to Eternal Happiness, simply because the one had had much 
that the other had not earned a penny of, and the other had 
had nothing, yet had not been robbed of a farthing by the 
other? Such an act would not contain even a spark of jus- 
tice. Ten thousand times worse would it be than ten thou- 
sand times ten thousand Rich Men could be capable of! 
.Yet, if the passage were literal, this would be the only 
reason there could be given for doing it; or rather, for its 
having been done. So, one being as positively literal as 
the other, the blackened character that a literal acceptation 
of it would give to God, should make even the Advocates of 
Eternal Burning shrink with horror from such an applica- 
tion of it. 



21 

ITow, I shall review the passage — not in the light of, or, 
rather, the darkness of Eternal Burning, but in the light of 
God's Word. 

The first of the paragraph, the 19th verse, says : " There 
was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple 
and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day." This, 
accepted in a figurative sense, which is the only Scriptural 
sense in Avhich it can be accepted, might very correctly be 
construed to represent a difterent class from those to which 
I shall, at present, apply it, and which I am satisfied are the 
great objects of the text. 

Yes, this might well be quoted as representing the 
Clergy generally of the present day, for they are clothed 
in equivalent to purple, and in fine linen, and fare sumptu- 
ously every day, whilst man}^ who are called upon to assist 
in thus supporting them, are so indigent that themselves 
and all around them manifest nothing but poverty. 

But passing this, the passage, from the 19th to the 21st 
verse, simply represents the two extremes, wealth with all 
that it can impart, and poverty in its lowest grade. 

Twenty-second verse: "And it came to pass, that the 
beggar died, and was carried by tbe angels into Abraham's 
bosom : the rich man also died, and was buried." It would 
be impossible — according to any doctrine, to accept this lan- 
guage as literal, for the beggar died; and — not the spirit, 
but the dead beggar, taking it literally, was carried by the 
angels into Abraham's bosom. Therefore, taken in its 
proper sense, we see that it points to that time, when, or 
shows us that there will be a time, when the angels will 
carry, even resurrected beggars to sliare eternal felicity 
with faithful Abraham, in the everlasting kingdom, as 
shown in Matthew, XXIVth chapter and 31st verse : " And 
he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, 
and they shall gather together his elect from the four 
winds, from one end of heaven to the other." 



Now, Why should God want to gather them, or how 
could He gather them " from one end of heaven to the 
other," whilst they were all with Him in heaven? The 
Advocates of Eternal Burning may tell w^hy, and how, as 
they do many other things; but common sense will still 
look at the text, and say : Why should He, or how could 
He gather them ? 

Twenty-third verse : "And in hell he lifted up his eyes, 
being in torments, and seetb Abraham afar off, and Lazarus 
in his bosom." Here, again we are forced to accept the 
language in a figurative sense, for it says : " In hell he 
lifted up his eyes, being in torments." Did it sa}-, "In hell 
he lifted up his eyes," omitting the torment, it might more 
consistently be construed as literal ; but inasmuch as it 
embraces torment, and, as the following verse shows, in 
flame, it cannot be construed as anything other than figura- 
tive, directing the mind to the final destruction of the 
wicked in the lake of fire, the onlv hell in which there is 
said to be (Scripturally) a reality of burning. 

We here read of the rich man's being in hell, after he 
had died, and had been buried. Jonah was in hell; and, as 
regards this hell, there can be no mistake, for he told God 
tliat he had been in hell, and God has never, even indi- 
rectly, contradicted it. 

So now, leaving the figure, we will, by turning to Revela- 
tion, XXth chapter, take a full view of the fact. "And I 
saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the 
books were opened." What were they opened for, to see 
how many hundred 3'ears the wicked had been Burned in 
Hell? Were they opened to see whether or not they had 
sufiercd the pains of Burning Flames long enough to be 
judged? The Advocates of Eternal Burning may answer, 
yes; and to carry out their direful doctrine they must. But 
God's Word tells quite a different story, for it says : "And 
the dead were judged out of those things which were written 



23 

in the books, according to their works ; " that is, at the 
judgment; but never before will they be judged, rewarded, 
or punished. 

But we return to the question. Hell. "And the sea gave 
up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered 
up the dead which were in them: and they were judged 
every man according to their works." Here we see another 
hell — not a hell of the living, as was Jonah's, but of the 
dead; and in the 14th and 15th verses we see that death, 
and hell, and all the wicked were cast into the lake of fire. 
Not the Spirits of the dead, but the dead; for it w^as the sea 
that had held the dead, and death that had held them, and 
in company with these, hell also had held them; and they, 
with the resurrected wicked, the sea excepted, are repre- 
sented as being together destroyed, after the last resurrec- 
tion and the judgment, in the lake of fire, the only hell in 
which a Burning is represented as being a literal reality. 
Therefore the situation of the Rich Man, as shown in Luke, 
must, in part, be regarded as typical of the terrible destruc- 
tion pictured in the foregoing. 

Twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses : "And he cried 
and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send 
Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and 
cool my tongue ; for I am tormented in this flame. But 
Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime 
receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil 
things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented." 
Equal measure is represented and taught by this — Lazarus 
desired the smallest favor possible of the Rich Man, and, as 
is evident, was refused it — the Rich Man desired the 
smallest favor, and he, in turn, was refused it; which sliowa 
that " the measure that we meet, shall be measured to us 
again." But what could be more foreign to justice and 
•truth than the direful doctrine that when " the measure that 
they meet, shall be measured to them again," that, for the 



24 

wrongs whicli they have done, as in the case of the Rich 
Man, they shall not only be deprived of life and forever cut 
ofl' from the land of the living, but shall be consigned to 
Eternal Burning in the Flames of Hell, by One who him- 
self is humanity; whilst also "God knoweth our frame, and 
remembereth that we are dust !" 

Twenty-sixth verse : "And besides all this, between us 
and you there is a great gulf fixed : so that they which 
would pass from hence to you cannot ; neither can they pass 
to us, that would come from thence." This shows that the 
two classes, the one represented by the Eich Man, and the 
other by Lazarus, will be for ever separated. But taken in a 
literal sense, in connection with the three preceding verses, 
it shows that those who are, by the Advocates of Eternal 
Burning, represented as being in perfect happiness, are 
always witnessing the inexpressible misery of their unfortu- 
nate friends — perhaps parents, brothers, sisters, or all three, 
or more, in the Flames of Hell. Hence, to accept the lan- 
guage as figurative is the only way that we can do justice 
to its Author. 

The following verses give us to understand that we shall 
not seek unto the dead, but unto the Lord. They show us 
that if we want to know anything about the other side of 
the grave, we shall go to God's Word, which is more reliable 
than the word of any one would be, who might rise from the 
dead, who, of course, would know nothing, as will hereafter 
be made manifest. 

Thirty-first verse: "And he said unto him. If they hear 
not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, 
though one rose from the dead." No, they would not have 
been persuaded though Lazarus had risen from the dead ! 
But according to the teaching of those who claim the 
immortality of man independently of the resurrection, 
Lazarus was then in all the vigor of immortality, and why 
should not he have been sent, without a Resurrection? It 



25 

needs no answer ! It would be nonsense, 3'ea, even crime, 
to connect a literal signification with this passage, and 
therefore it is manifest that there is no present reality 
about it. 



THE 37th AND 38th VERSES OF THE XXth CHAPTER 

OF LUKE, AND THE 28th VERSE OF THE 

Xth CHAPTER OF MATTHEW. 

Kow, I shall continue by turning to the XXth chapter 
of Luke, 37th and 38th verses, that, by properly analyz- 
ing them, a clear understanding may be had of that pas- 
sage which is so often presented as the grand palladium, 
of the doctrine of Eternal Burning, the 28th verse of the 
Xth chapter of Matthew: " And fear not them which kill 
the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear 
him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." 
But, commencing with the first mentioned passage, Ave read: 
" Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the 
bush, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, and 
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a 
God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him." 

In order the better to simplify the foregoing, (for it is not 
only complex, but also very abstruse,) I shall here answer, as 
well as ask, a number of questions; and commence by say- 
ing : Who showed " that the dead are raised ?" Why, 
Moses showed it. When did he show " that the dead are 
raised?" Why, "when he called the Lord the God of 
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;" 
that is when he showed it. What did Moses show at the 
bush? Why, he showed "that the dead are raised." But 
how did he show " that the dead are raised ?" Why, he 
showed that the dead are raised, by calling the Lord the 
God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of 
Jacob ; that is how he showed it. But for what reason did 



26 

he show by this, ^' that the dead are raised ?" Why, because 
" Grod is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for all live 
unto him." 

Xow, as this shows that the dead are raised, so it shows 
that there are dead to be raised; and therefore it shows that 
when a man dies he ceases to exist, and is not a being for 
God to be a God of. Yet, when the body is killed or the 
man dies and the soul ceases to exist, his existence does 
not cease ; for whether good or bad, God has decreed that 
he shall exist again. And as there are those who are dead, 
and yet all live unto God, and this is what shows that " the 
dead are raised," the reason why all live unto Him, is 
because He can, and will call them forth at His pleasure. 
For just as surely as Moses, by calling the Lord the God of 
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, had 
shown that "the dead are raised," so surely Jesus showed 
that the dead live unto God because — and only because He 
can, and will call them forth at His pleasure. Hence, when 
the body is killed and the soul ceases to exist, it is not; and 
as God is not a God of that which is not, but of that which 
is, and of those who are, and of those who shall be, He is 
not a God of the dead, but of the living. 

But when God says that " the soul that sinneth, it shall 
die," He means that it shall die the Second Death, when 
both soul and body shall be destroyed in the lake of fire, 
which destruction will be for ever. For God is able to 
destroy both soul and body in hell, and plainly shows us 
that if we do not fear Him, we shall, in this manner, be 
destroyed. 

Hence He has given us to understand that the existence 
of the soul does not depend upon the natural life, but that 
it depends upon His word, or calling; and that, inasmuch 
as He can call them forth at. His pleasure, they all live 
unto Him, though they be killed, and so cease to exist for 
a time ; and that, as all live unto Him, thous^h men kill the 



27 

body, they cannot kill or destroy the soul as unto Him; for 
that, unto Him it lives, and shall live until both soul and 
body shall be destroyed in the lake of fire, after which it shall 
live no more, there being no resurrection thereafter; and 
that, as"all live unto Him until that time, the soul cannot be 
destroyed before that time ; for that, notwithstanding that 
the soul ceases to exist, its existence does not cease ; for 
it must exist again, just as it first existed, and then, if of 
the wicked, be destroyed for ever, and exist no more. 

And the fact is obvious that, no matter when it is done, 
the soul is first destroyed, and then the body; for as soon 
as the life is gone, the soul is destroyed; for then nothing 
remains but the inanimate man, and when this is destroyed, 
though the whole living being is the soul, the soul and body 
are both destroyed ; for this being, a soul, which embraces 
all that living humanity is, cannot be a soul when the life 
is gone which makes a soul of it. Hence, when the life is 
gone, the soul is destroyed, though the body still remain to 
be destroyed. 

Again, we see that, when Christ said, "Fear not them 
which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul,'' 
He spoke with reference to two existences ; and of course we 
take it for granted that He knew what a soul was, and that, 
what the Holy Word tells us it is, that that is what Christ 
knew it to be. So, beginning with Adam, we see that God 
made man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life, and that, then, man became a 
living soul ; and that, therefore, that which he was after 
the breath of life had been breathed into him, which was 
nothing more nor less than a soul, is what Christ knew a 
soul to be. He knew that Noah, Job, Daniel, and all 
the descendants of Adam were souls; and He knew that 
the organic structure and the breath of life was what, and all 
that constituted a soul. Therefore He knew that when the 
body was killed and the breath of life, called the spirit. 



28 

went forth, the soul, for a time, ceased to exist. Yet He 
said, " Fear not them which kill the body, but are not 
able to kill the soul." 

So now, let us compare this with what is said in Ezekiel; 
that is, " Behold, all souls are mine ; as the soul of the 
father, so also the soul of the son is mine : the soul that 
sinneth, it shall die." Xow, suppose that some one had 
killed that soul that sinned, it would surely have ceased to 
exist just as the one referred to by Christ when he said, 
'' Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to 
kill the soul." Yet, notwithstanding tbat it would have 
ceased to exist for a time, that which God had spoken con- 
cerning it Avould not have been fulfilled. Therefore, when 
Christ said, " Cannot kill the soul ". — the self, He meant, 
could not destroy its existence hereafter, just in accordance 
with what God meant when he said, " The soul that sinneth, 
it shall die ; " that is, die the Second Death. For all must 
die the first death, whether good or bad, but the wicked 
must die the Second Death; for the soul that sinneth, 
though, through the first death, it ceases for a time to exist, 
it must exist again ; and, as God has decreed, die the Second 
Death. Therefore, though God simply says, " The soul that 
sinneth, it shall die," the import of it is, that, although the 
wicked die the first death, it will not relieve them from the 
punishment which He has decreed; that is, that they shall 
die the Second Death. Hence we see that, when Jesus said, 
" Fear not them wlach kill the body, but are not able to kill 
the soul," He meant, " Fear not them," who, though they ter- 
minate this life, cannot deprive you of an existence hereafter ; 
for though you cease to exist for a time, you still live unto 
God ; for He can, and will call you forth at His pleasure. 
Therefore, as the first death of the soul that sinneth cannot 
relieve Him from the punishment of the Second Death, so 
the sufi'ering of the first death cannot deprive the saint of 
the Second, or Eternal Life, which will be his reward. 



29 

Now, as this is so plainly and positively to the effect that 
the dead are dead, and that the reason why the dead live 
unto God is hecause lie can, and will call them forth at Ilis 
pleasure, How plainly and how positively does it condemn 
tlie worse than heathenish story concerning the Eternal 
Burning of the erring of our race, in a Hell of Fire and 
Brimstone? How plainly does it show that just as surely 
as Christ meant anything when he said, "Fear not them 
which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul : but 
rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and 
body in hell," He meant that, if they did not fear Him, they 
should thus be destroyed; and that, therefore. He meant 
just what David, His father according to the flesh, meant, 
when he said, " The wicked shall perish, and the enemies 
of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs : they shall con- 
sume; into smoke shall they consume away !" It confirms 
this fact, and makes it as positive that the Second Death will 
be the last of the wicked, as it is positive that Christ uttered 
the words : " Destroy both soul and body in hell." For 
Christ has shown that the body of the wicked shall be 
destroyed in hell, (the lake of fire,) and He has just as 
clearly shown that, then, the soul will have ceased to exist. 



THE PASSAGES YET TO BE NOTICED, 

With respect to the passages yet to be noticed as favor- 
ing the immortality of man independently of the resurrec- 
tion, the question will not be merely what they are, but are 
they what they should be, as well as what they are. 

Now, as all must realize that the Divine Word cannot be 
other than harmony, the love of truth should compel us to 
receive it in its unclothed reality; and that it may thus be 
seen and understood, I shall take the liberty of rejecting, as 



30 

the imperfections of humanity, a few items, wliicli, in the 
light of this same Divine Word, none could receive, though 
he even desired to do so. And, reader, when, through the 
better feelings of our nature and the more expanded reach- 
ings of the mind, we are enabled to surmount the bar- 
riers that bigotry, infatuation, and designing apostates have 
reared upon the highway of holiness, we can easily see 
that the love of truth is the only qualification necessary to 
fit us to determine the question with regard to these pas- 
sages, whicb are four in number, and all of the same class. 



THE SPIRITS OF JUST MEN MADE PERFECT. 

In Hebrews, Xllth chapter, 23d verse, we find the 
phrase, " The spirits of just men made perfect." But it is 
evident that, in the original, it was not, " The spirits of just 
men," but the Spirit of just men made perfect, which Spirit, 
is the Holy Ghost; or, that it was, To the Spirit by which 
you have been made perfect ; for there is no perfection in 
or connected with death ; it is all imperfection. But the 
Spirit, the -Holy Ghost, is that by which we are made 
perfect. For God justifies them that believe in Jesus, and 
then they are just, and then they are made perfect by the 
Holy Ghost that is given unto them, by which the love of 
God is shed abroad in their hearts ; and then they are the 
just men made perfect by the Spirit, without which they 
could not be perfect. Therefore it requires no more than 
a genuine Christian experience to make one capable of 
understanding the original, in the place of which, we have 
this phrase. 



31 



THE BOOK OF LIFE, AND THE BOOK OF LIFE OF THE 

LAMB SLAIN FROM THE FOUNDATION 

OF THE WORLD. 

I shall now consider two passages conjointly. 

In Revelation, XXth chapter, 4th verse, we find it writ- 
ten : " And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for 
the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God." But 
before proceeding further with this, I shall record the 8th 
verse of the XVIIth chapter, which reads thus : " The 
beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out 
of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition : and they that 
dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not 
written in the book of life from the foundation of the 
world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and 
yet is." 

Here it is afiirmed that " they shall wonder, whose names 
were not written in the book of life from the foundation of 
the world.'' Therefore the idea conveyed is, that the names 
of those who should be saved, had been written in the book 
of life thousands of years before they were in existence ; 
and that all others had been, at the same time, doomed to 
destruction ; which is as foreign to the original, the Divine 
Word, as darkness is to light, as is shown in the 8th verse 
of the XIITth chapter, " And all that dwell upon the earth 
shall worship him, whose names are not written in the 
book of life of the Lamb Slain from the foundation of the 
world." 

It is manifest therefore, that, instead of their names having 
been written in the book of life from the foundation of the 
world, they had been written in the book of Jesus Christ, 
Who was " the Lamb of God" that had been foreordained 
as a provision in behalf of man, before the foundation of 
the world. Therefore it is not only the book of life, but the 



32 

book of life of the Lamb Slain from the foundation of the 
world. Hence we see that, for whatever reason, the phrase, 
of the Lamb Slain, has been omitted in the XVIIth chapter ; 
and looks as though it had been done by design, in favor of 
the immortality of man, without a resurrection. 

Now, turning to the XXth chapter, we have a case 
parallel with that of the XVIIth, the difference being, 
that whilst in the 8th verse of the XVIIth chapter, the 
phrase, of the Lamb Slain, has been omitted, the 4th verse of 
the XXth chapter has been interlarded with, of them. But 
now we will read the passage, and then determine as to this 
peculiar feature : 

" And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judg- 
ment was given unto them : and I saw the souls of them 
that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the 
word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, 
neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their 
foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with 
Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not 
again until the thousand years were finished. This is the 
first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in 
the first resurrection : on such the second death hath no 
power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and 
shall reign with him a thousand years." 

This represents John as saying that he saw — not the per- 
sons who had been beheaded, but the souls of those persons; 
and that then he says those souls lived and reigned with 
Christ a thousand years; and then again, that he says that 
the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years 
were finished. This, as all must plainly see, is the reality 
of the passage with the phrase, of them. But what nonsense 
this, of them, makes of the whole passage ? What sense 
could be made of such a bungling, contradictory arrange- 
ment? And who cannot see that the phrase, of them, is the 



33 

cause of all this confusion, and that, therefore, no matter 
how it got there, it does not belong to the Divine Word ? 

But now, reader, omitting this foreign element, you will 
see how harmoniously all the facts unite and prove that this, 
of them, did not belong to the original, and that the passage 
is the Divine Word without it, thus : " And I saw thrones, 
and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto 
them : and I saw the souls .... that were beheaded 
for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and 
which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, 
neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in 
their hands ; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thou- 
sand years. But the rest of the dead, (that is, dead souls,) 
lived not again until the thousand years were finished. 
This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that 
hath part in the first resurrection : on such the second 
death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and 
of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." 

In all this, is there a single word that conflicts with 
another? No. There is not a shadow of discord. The 
passage throughout, is perfect harmony. 

When Christ was on earth, He promised His Apostles, 
that, '^ In the regeneration, when the Son of man should sit 
upon the throne of his glory, they should sit upon twelve 
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of the children of Israel." 
In the 4th verse of the preceding, John says : '' I saw 
thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given 
unto them." Here the}^ are in the regeneration, and the 
promise fulfilled, but not until after the first resurrection. 

In the beginning, God made man of the dust of the ground, 
and then, after He had thus made him, He breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. 
Therefore, a soul is what Adam was, and all his descend- 
ants are souls. They can be nothing more nor less in this 
life ; they can be nothing more nor less in the future. 
3 



34 

John, therefore, in speaking of the resurrected righteous, 
saj'S : " I saw the souls .... that were heheadecl for 
the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God:" that is, he 
saw that those righteous persons who had been beheaded, 
(they being the most prominent characters,) with all the 
rest of the righteous, lived and reigned with Christ a thou- 
sand years: durinsc which time the wicked were still dead, 
as they, the righteous, had been, before they were resur- 
rected. 

So now, as it is manifest that the passage with, of them, 
is nothing but discord, and even contradicts the teachings 
of those who teach it, it is certainly manifest that this, of 
them, instead of belonging to the Revelation of Jesus Christ, 
belongs to the apostates who invented it. And ^therefore 
we see that this passage, instead of favoring the doctrine of 
a Burning Hell between Death and the Resurrection, con- 
firms the truth as taught by Paul, that, in the absence of 
the resurrection, all had perished. 



THE WORD BRING. 



^ow, lest any should suppose that the Scriptures ought 
to be received, as many teach, in the absence of reason, I 
take the liberty of asserting the contrary, and of assuring 
the reader that, relying upon the reality of the Divine 
"Word, he need not fear, though he here find, as in the pre- 
ceding, defects in the work of its translators. And so, turn- 
ing to 1st Thessalonians, lYth chapter, we find that it 
requires but a small amount of reason, and but ordinary 
common sense, to remove all difficulty in regard to the 
future state, so far as the last of these passages is concerned. 

This passage, with its surroundings, I now record : " But 
I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning 



35 

them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others 
which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God 
bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of 
the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the 
coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are jisleep. 
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a 
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump 
of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we 
which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with 
them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so 
shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one 
another with these words." 

There is not a word in the New Testament that is more 
clearly to the contrary of the original, from whatever cause, 
than the word bring^ in the 14th verse of the foregoing. 
This word, surrounded as it is with such plain, such com- 
prehensible facts, looks as though it had been placed there 
for the purpose of supporting the immortality of man to the • 
exclusion of the fact that upon the resurrection only, 
depends his future existence. For Paul had in view the 
comforting of those who had friends who were in their 
graves; and lest they should have supposed that those 
friends would be left behind when the Lord gathered His 
Church, the word "bring" excepted, he said: "But I 
would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning 
them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others 
which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God 
bring with him." — 1st Thessalonians, lYth chapter, 13th 
and 14th verses. 

Now, if they had been in heaven, or where God was going 
to take the living, why would God bring them with Hira ? If 
they had been in heaven in perfect safety, Why should Paul 
have comforted the living concerning them ? If they had 



36 

been safe when God was sroino^ to take the livins:, the livinor 

O CD O 7 Q 

would have needed no comfort concerning them, for they 
would have been the safer of the two. But if comfort had 
been needed bj either party, under such circumstances, it 
would have been needed by those who were in perfect 
safety ; they would have needed comfort concerning those 
who had not yet escaped that danger from which they had 
been safely delivered. Hence, how plain the fact that the 
word bring, in our present copies, was TAKE, in the orig- 
inal ? 

Again, when, in the 14tli verse, we read that '• them also 
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him," we can see 
how flatly this bring is contradicted by the following verses, 
thus : " For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, 
that we which are alive and remain unto the coming: of the 
Lord shall not prevent them which are," — What ! Awake, 
mingling in the triumphant shout of the coming lost ? ^o ; 
but " asleep." For the Lord himself shall descend from 
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and 
with the trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise 
first. IS'ow, how harmoniously does this unite with the 
declaration of Jesus to the effect that the time should come 
when those who were in their graves should hear His voice 
and come forth ? But who would not blush to hear one say, 
They 'shall be raised from heaven to earth? And yet, if 
the}' be brought, instead of taken, this is the only process, 
which, of course, is as absurd as the declaration. Hence it 
is manifest that bring does not belong to the Divine Word, 
but that it belono-s to the advocates of the heretical doctrine 
of inborn immortality ; and that it has been substituted for 
TAKE, through actual infatuation, or willful design. 

But how plain do all the facts appear, and how harmoni- 
ously are the}' all united, when bring, which undoubtedly did 
not belong to the original, is removed, and TAKE occupies 
its place? Eor, with this construction, we can see why we 
should be comforted ; for we shall be taken up to meet the 



37 

Lord in the air, and we have friends who are asleep, or in 
their graves, we do not want to have them left behind ; it 
would be a source of the greatest discomfort, to think that 
when we shall be taken from the sorrowful scenes of earth, 
those loved ones who are in their graves should be left 
behind. This, Paul very well knew, and the contentions 
about the resurrection had made this question about the 
case of the dead, one of the greatest importance; and there- 
fore, he said: "T would not have you to be ignorant, 
brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow 
not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe 
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep 
in Jesus," will He raise from the dead, and TAKE with 
Him. "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, 
that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the 
Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the 
Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with 
the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : 
and," — What — Shall the living saints descend ? 'No; ''the 
dead in Christ shall rise." "For the Lord Himself shall 
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the 
archangel, and with the trump of God : and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first : Then we which are alive and remain 
shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet 
the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 
Now, it is manifest that, by the use of the word bring, the 
translators tell us that the dead are in heaven; and that, 
then they tell us that they are asleep; and that, then they 
tell us that they shall be brought from heaven; and then 
again, that they shall be raised out of their graves, prior to 
being taken to heaven. Therefore, it' they had left this 
word with the heathenish doctrines, where it belonged, and 
given us that which undoubtedly the original was, TAKE, 
we should not have been troubled with this discordant 
mass, but would now have the original, the Divine Word 
to the effect that, though so many of Christ's followers are 



38 

in their graves, there is not one forgotten. ^' For the Lord 
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the 
voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : and 
the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive 
and remain shall he caught up together with them in the 
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so shall w^e 
ever he with the Lord." And we should be able to com- 
ply with Paul's exhortation : " Comfort one another with 
these words." 

But who could understand such comforting as bring 
w^ould niake ! Yet how comprehensible and how com- 
forting, when we accept the passage as it is evident the 
Apostle wrote it, that, " If we believe that Jesus died and 
rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will, 
God" TAKE "with Him?" It is equivalent to saying: 
My beloved Thessalonian brethren, if you believe that Jesus 
Christ our Lord died and rose again, rest assured that your 
friends who have died in this precious faith, shall not be 
left behind when the Lord comes to take you. For He 
Himself, Who is the resurrection and the life, will, as He 
has said He would, call them forth from the grave, their 
resting-place, and you shall together be taken from the 
then chaotic scene, until the earth, having passed through 
its fiery ordeal, shall be returned to its Eden purity and 
loveliness and fitted for the everlasting abode of the ran- 
somed. This is the import of it all, and how easily under- 
stood, and how exceedingly comforting! 

Now, as this is so clearly to the effect that the grave is 
the resting-place of the saint, between death and the resur- 
rection, that they all sleep as Lazarus slept, and that, as he 
was called forth, they shall be called forth, the direful 
teachino^ to the effect that the wicked are in a Blazins: 
Hell, between death and the resurrection, is forced from 
the face of the Sacred Volume; and finds its level, if its 
level can be found, only among those Damnable Heresies, 
which, by the apostates, were brought into the Church. 



i 
il 



39 



SAMUEL, SAUL, AND THE WITCH OF ENDOB. 

And now, inasmuch as some have presented the case of 
Saul and Samuel, recorded in 1st Samuel, XXVIIIth chap- 
ter, to prove that man exists in a future state independently 
of the resurrection, or rather, as it should he said, inde- 
pendently of himself, I call the reader's attention to the con- 
tents of the chapter, so far as bears upon this subject, and 
that, as ever, we may have the facts before us in their plain 
form, we will commence at the 7th, and read to the 19th 
verse. 

" Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that 
hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and enquire of 
her. And his servants said to him. Behold, there is a 
woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor. And Saul dis- 
guised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and 
two men with him, and they came to the woman by night : 
and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, 
and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee. And 
the woman said unto him. Behold, thou knowest what 
Saul hath done, how he hath cut off* those that have 
familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land : where- 
fore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me 
to die ? And Saul sware to her by the Lord, saying, As 
the Lord liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee 
for this thing. Then said the woman. Whom shall I bring 
up unto thee? And he said. Bring me up Samuel. And 
when the womau saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice : 
and the woman spake to Saul, saying. Why hast thou 
deceived me? for thou art Saul. And the king said unto 
her, Be not afraid : for what savvest thou ? And the 
woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the 
earth. And he said unto her, Wliat form is he of? And 
she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a 



40 

mantle. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he 
stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself. 

" And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted 
me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore dis- 
tressed : for the Philistines make war against me, and God 
is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither 
by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, 
that thou mayst make known unto iiie what I shall do. 
Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, 
seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine 
enemy? And the Lord hath done to him, as he spake by 
me : for the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, 
and given it to thy neighbour, even to David : Because thou 
obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, nor executedst his 
fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done 
this thing unto thee this day. Moreover the Lord will also 
deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines : 
and. to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the 
Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of 
the Philistines." 

Here we see that, Saul and his servants having gone to 
the woman by night, Saul desired her to divine unto him 
by the familiar spirit, and bring him up whom he should 
name. Isow, reader, be careful to observe, as you proceed; 
what is taught by the conversation between these parties, 
for, as stated above, Saul desired the woman to divine by 
the familiar spirit, and to bring down, — Is that right? No. 
But why not? If Saul had believed that Samuel was in 
heaven, down would be correct. But, according to the 
reality of the case, down is certainly WTong; for, said Saul, 
"Bring me him up whom I shall name unto thee." Hence 
we must understand that he believed Samuel to be in the 
grave, and that it was thence he expected the woman to 
bring him. We also see that she did not say, Shall I bring 
one from hell, from purgatory, or, shall I bring one down 



i 



41 

from heaven? lN"o; but said she, "Whom shall I bring up 
unto thee ?" But why did not Saul tell her that he had made 
a mistake'that she could not bring him up, for he was in 
heaven, and that, therefore, she would have to bring him 
down ? If there had been a shadow of such an idea con- 
nected with the case, we might wonder why he did not tell 
her so, but as it is, there is no need of wonder, for he under- 
stood the question, and expressed his desire in full, when he 
said: "Bring me up Samuel." 

Now, where did this, or this so-called Samuel come from ? 
Could I have made a mistake in regard to the idea conveyed 
by the request of Saul and the answer of the woman? Let 
us see. " And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried 
with a loud voice : and the woman spake to Saul, saying, 
Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul. And the 
king said unto her. Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? 
And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out 
of the earth." But why did they not come from heaven, 
where all the righteous are located by those who teach that 
the wicked, between death and the resurrection, are suffering 
in the Flames of Hell ? Let the answer be what it may, the 
coming of these gods, or of this god, was out of the earth. 

Then said Saul: "What form is he of? And she said, 
An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. 
And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped 
with his face to the ground, and bowed himself" 

So now let us see what Samuel had to say about where he 
came from. 

"And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me," 
— Job, when speaking of rest in the grave, said: "I should 
have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept : then had 
I been at rest." Yes; and just so Samuel had been at rest, 
before he was disquieted. But Samuel did not only say, 
" Why hast thou discpiieted me?" but said he : " Why hast 
thou disquieted me, to bring me up?" So Samuel said that 



42 

he had been disquieted, and that he had been brought iq). 
It was ujp that Saul had requested the woman to bring him, 
and it was out of the earth that he had expected him to 
come. And having, as he had expected he would, found 
the Prophet just w^hat he had known him to be before his 
death, without a whisper concerning the glories of heaven 
or the torments of hell, he said : *' I am sore distressed ; for 
the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed 
from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, 
nor by dreams : therefore I have called thee, that thou 
mayst make known unto me what I shall do." 

Then Samuel answered. But did he say that what he 
had prophesied concerning Saul and the kingdom of Israel 
was confirmed by what he had seen and heard before the 
throne of God in heaven, where the Fabulists say he had 
been from the time of his death? Not so much as the 
remotest intimation of such a thing did he give, but said : 
"Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is 
departed from thee, and is become thine enemy ? And the 
Lord hath done to him, as he spake by me: for the Lord 
hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to 
thy neighbour, even to David : Because thou obeyedst not 
the voice of the Lord, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon 
Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee 
this day." And then, as though to establish forever, as indis- 
putable, the facts that there was neither a heaven nor a hell, 
for either himself, or for Saul, between death and the res- 
urrection, but that their rest would be in the dust, he said : 
" Moreover the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee into 
the hand of the Philistines : and to-morrow shalt thou and 
thy sons be with me." 

Now, no matter what opinions there may be in regard to 
the contents of this chapterj one fact stands out, isolated 
and prominent; that is, that Saul, his companions, and the 
woman, all believed that Samuel and the rest of the dead 



43 

were in their graves ; that they were not to be brought from 
heaven, from hell, nor from purgatory, but that, if commu- 
nicated with, they were to be first raised iq^ out of the earth. 
Therefore, that which has come from Endor as the voice of 
Samuel, utterly condemns as being a Damnable Heresy, the 
direful dogma of Eternal Burning; for, referring to the 
grave, to Saul he said, " To-morrow shalt thou and thy 
sons be with me." 



THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION. 

IN'ow that all the passages of importance that seem to 
favor the doctrine of Eternal Burning, together with many 
that are regarded as more particularly favoring the intrin- 
sical immortality of man, have been fully quoted and faced 
in their reality, and have been found to prove that, instead 
of Eternal Burning being the destiny of the erring of 
humanity, the Second Death, and it only, is their destiny, 
"What may we expect when we come to examine 'the other 
side of the question ? Why it follows as an inevitable result, 
that, as the evidence adduced to sustain it, proves the con- 
trary, those passages which are more clearl}^ to the contrary, 
must sweep even the last tint, or rather, taint of this noxious 
falsity from the face of the Sacred Volume. 

But before proceeding further, the mind of the reader 
should be refreshed with regard to the doctrine in question ; 
for it has become so common to say. Eternal Punishment, 
Eternal Hell, Everlasting Torment, and the like, that the 
real nature and magnitude of this arrangement concerning 
the erring of humanity, are seldom realized. But now, 
reader, as nearly as possible, you shall have this doctrine 
before you, in its plain form. 

Lest, however, any should suppose that in the preceding 
or following, injustice is done to those who teach Eternal 



44 

Torment, be it understood tliat the punishment whicli they 
teach, cannot be magnified. It is not within the power of 
man to produce more terrible ideas than are connected with 
the doctrine of Eternal Torment. Therefore, reader, rest 
assured that, be it described as it may, its terribleness can 
never be told. 

This doctrine is positively to the effect that all who fail 
to comply with tlie requirements of the Gospel, are, at 
death, consigned to the Flames of Hell; that there, in that 
unceasing Torment of Fire and Brimstone, their punishment 
is carried on by Satan and his host, (fire-proof beings,) who, 
by so doing, are, as his willing servants, executing the 
decree of the Almighty. And that, although the wicked, at 
the judgment, (according to their doctrine,) will have been 
Burned in Hell, some, for ^ve or six thousands of years, 
they shall be brought forth to trial ; that then the question 
of guilt will be determined, and that, then, they shall be 
punished. 

But how criminally false is this doctorine ! Mark it, 
thousands of years of punishment in Flaming Fire to pre- 
cede the Judgment ! Who that does not close liis eyes to 
the light of God's Word, and to all that reason dictates, can 
fail to see that they have laid aside the plain truth, and 
embraced a most execrable lie ? And how utterly repugnant 
to every true believer, yea, and to every one else who does 
not love falsehood better than himself, should this apostate, 
this popish, this worse than heathenish story of a Burning 
Hell between death and the resurrection, appear. 

Again, when we read in God's Sacred Volume that He 
hath appointed a day in the which "he will judge the world 
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained," and 
again, that, after the last resurrection, "the books shall be 
opened, and that another book shall be opened, which is the 
book of life, and the dead shall be judged out of those things 
which are written in the books, according to their works," 



45 

What more should be required to make a Christian blush, 
than to be told that the diabolical heresy of Eternal Burn- 
ing in a Blazing Hell had been taught in the past! and how 
degrading for him to mention it as true, or countenance its 
being taught in the future ! 



COMMENCEMENT OF THE SO-CALLED ETERNAL 
PUNISHMENT. 

Now that the question so far as punishment for six thou- 
sand years in the Blazing Fire of a Literal Hell, prior to the 
Resurrection and Judgment, has been fairly considered, I 
shall, though still continuing the evidence connected with 
tlie subject as prior to the Judgment, endeavor to give an 
idea of this doctrine, as subsequent to that event; for that 
which they teach as preceding the Judgment, being limited 
by time, is not Eternal Punishment. 

This direful story concerning the punishing of the wicked, 
after the last resurrection, which, in reality, is the doctrine 
of Eternal Burning, represents the Almighty as having 
made extraordinary use of His wisdom to prepare and to 
perpetuate a punishment for the erring of humanity, so ter- 
rible, that, although the punishment described in the fore- 
going is ten thousand times ten thousand times greater than 
God's Word declares that the punishment of the wicked shall 
be, when compared with it, it is found to be — not as a drop 
to a bucket, but as one to the mighty ocean. For this doc- 
trine of Eternal Burning is to the effect that after the Judg- 
ment, the wicked shall be " Cast into the lake of fire and 
brimstone, prepared for the devil and his angels;" and that, 
there; in that Burning Hell, they shall be punished; that, 
though they Burn in that Literal Flame for a hundred 
years, a God of Justice cannot be satisfied with such pun- 



46 

ishmeiit. Tliej must continue to Burn. And that, though 
such horrid pangs be endured for a thousand years in the 
presence of a God of Mercy, there can be no mitigation. 
The}' must still continue to Burn in that Blazing Hell. Yea, 
that when ten thousand years shall have been added to 
the other, even a God of Love cannot stay His hand." O 
Damnable Heresy! But thanks be to God that such teach- 
ing is not mine! 

Yet it does not stop here; for ten thousand years of 
punishment added to a thousand, is but, as it were, a begin- 
ning. I have heard it described and taught thus, that, "If 
the Allegheny Mountains were to be removed b}^ a bird 
that would come once in a thousand years and carry off a 
pebble, the time that would be required to accomplish the 
work, would not be Eternity; and that, therefore, such a 
length of time would not end the sufferings of the wicked, 
in the Flames of Indescribable Torment. 

Alas ! poor erring humanity ! How they can lift their eyes 
towards heaven and attribute such work to the Almighty, is 
surely amazing beyond measure! I almost tremble while 
describing it as being charged against Him, and I should 
fear the destruction of the damned, were I to charge Him 
w^ith the ten thousandth part of such cruelty! 

God is Just, and Justice is His severest attribute. He is 
Merciful; yea, He is a God of Love. For, although man 
had sinned and incurred the penalty of death, '' God so loved 
the world, that lie gave his only begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life." What a change in the picture ! Instead of God com- 
bining all His powers to invent and carry on a punishment 
which would suit, though not satisfy the Insatiable Ven- 
geance which the Advocates of Eternal Burning ascribe ta 
Him, His powers have been concentrated in order to save us 
from the punishment of the Second Death. 



47 



LIFE AND DEATH. 

]^ow that we have life and death before us, let us for a 
while examine, that we may see what the realities of these 
things are. The Advocates of Eternal Burning tell us that 
Life means Life, and then they tell us that Death means 
Life too. But now mark the difference between the wise 
man, and those who teach Eternal Burning. Says Solomon, 
"The living know that they shall die." Certainly, say the 
Spiritualists, we all know that we sball die, but death is 
only the gateway to Everlasting Life, and as soon as death 
removes tPie fleshy vail from our immortal eyes, we shall 
know all that we know now, and thrice as much more; for 
our knowledge Avill embrace the rapturous scenes of the 
region of glorj-. But stop! Let us hear the rest of his 
story; for he does not only say, "the living know that they 
shall die," but says he: "The dead know not anything." 

Here we see that the difference between Solomon, and 
those who teach that death is the gateway to eternal felicity, 
is, that the Lispired one emphatically asserts that "the dead 
know not anything," and that the others tell us that they 
know all that humanity, mortal or immortal, can know. 
Hence we see how positively contrary to the Scriptures, is 
their teaching in regard to the wicked; for w^ere they in a 
Hell of Fire Burning with Brimstone, it is certain that Solo- 
mon's declaration would be false. Therefore we see that, 
as Solomon's assertion is the reality of the Scriptures, the 
teaching to the effect that the wicked are Burning in Hell, 
is a fabrication of man; which leaves the reality just as the 
Inspired one has declared it to be ; that is, that " the dead 
know not anything J^ 

Now let us see if this corresponds with what Job under- 
stood the reality of Death to be. But why say if! for says 
he: "Man dieth and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the 



48 

ghost, and where is he?" Then he tells us where he is; for 
says he: ''As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood 
decajeth and drieth up; so man lieth down, and riseth not." 
But, say the Spiritualists, they are rejoicing in heaven. Yet 
Joh continues : " Till the heavens be no more, they shall 
not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." 

Here, again we see the difference between the realities of 
the Scriptures, and the fabrications of man. The Scriptures 
teach us that when man dies, he is as the flood that decayeth 
and drieth up; that is, that he is not — does not exist. But 
the Fabulists tell us that the wicked of them, are in a Hell 
of Fire Burning with Brimstone. The Scriptures tell us 
that, " till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, 
nor be raised out of their sleep." The Fabulists tell us that 
the righteous of them, are not only awake, but are rejoicing 
most gloriously, in heaven, and that they never were asleep. 
They represent the dead Christian as being in the vigor of 
immortal bloom; with his mind expanded, his thoughts 
reaching out and embracing all that can be brought within 
the scope of that intellect with which his immortal self, 
through the blessing of death, has been crowned with. But 
ah! how differently David looked at Death! Said he, when 
looking at this event which the Fabulists describe as the 
goal of the Christian: "In death there is no remembrance 
of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?" 

Therefore how audaciously false is the doctrine that the 
dead are alive, and either praising God in Heaven, or groan- 
ing in the Torments of Hell ? 

How long before men will cease to call such teachers as 
David liars, and concoct such frightful schemes to terrify 
the credulous, in order to accomplish their selfish purposes? 
How long must the realities of the Scriptures be supplanted 
by Damnable Heresies ? Must Pagan Home rule forever ? 
Shall not the time come when the Protestant Church will 
see that this driving wheel of Popish machinery, (the Doc- 



49 

trine of Eternal Burning,) moves in direct opposition to 
God's word? Cannot they see, if they will, that to make 
this true, is to declare positively that Job, David, and 
Solomon are liars ? Oh that they would consider how 
falsely they are accusing the Almighty, and return to the 
realities of the Scriptures! 

So now, as this teaching to the effect that Death is Life, 
has been shown to be repugnant to all reason, loathsome to 
oomrnon sense, and positively contrary to the teachings of 
the Scriptures, we can proceed with the assurance that Life 
means Life, and that Death means Death. And with the 
light of the glorious Gospel of the Son of God shining upon 
our pathway, we can traverse the whole length before us, 
with but little to impede our progress. 



EVERLASTING LIFE, AND EVERLASTING DEATH. 



Says the Word : " God so loved the world, that he gave 
his only begotten Son" to die for us, "that whosoever 
believeth in him should not PERISH, but have EVER- 
LASTING LIFE." Here, Death is presented before us as 
the mighty ocean, into which, through their own sins, all 
had been immerged. Here we see that — not a few, but all 
— not one excepted, were or had been destined to Perish. 
" For all had sinned and come short of the glory of God," 
All were or had been in the mighty ocean of Death, and 
doomed to Perish. 

God did not give His Son to save men from Temporal 
Death, or Perishing; for all thus perish. But E[e gave His 
Son to save them from Everlasting Perishing; and hence 
the saying, " That they might have everlasting life.'* There 
is no such a thing mentioned as that God gave His Son to 
die for us, that He might save us from an Everlasting Life, 
4 



50 

in a Hell of Fire and Brimstone. ^Xo; but He gave His 
onlv bescotten Son that we should not Perish, but have 
Everlasting Life ; that we might be saved from that Ever- 
lasting Death to which all were destined. Hence, how plain 
is the fact that those who have not obtained Eternal Life, 
are still destined to the Everlasting Perishing, or Death ? 

Sin is the transgression of the law, and death is the 
penalty of sin. The First Death is the result of Adam's 
sin; but the Second, the Everlasting Death, if suffered, will 
be the result of our own sins. Therefore, when we are 
saved from the penalty of vsiu, we are saved from the Second, 
the Everlasting Death, which will be the Everlasting Punish- 
ment of the wicked. And how positively is this conlirmed 
by the 24th verse of the Yth chapter of John, where Jesus 
says: "Yerily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth 
my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath ever- 
lasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is 
passed FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE " ? 

Was it the Temporal Death from which they had been 
secured ? Xo. It was the Everlastino: Death. 

Again, in 39th verse. He told the Jews to " search the 
Scriptures," for in them, said He, " ye think ye have eter- 
nal life;" but He gave them plainly to understand that 
unless they believed in Him, they had no life in them, but 
were a wreck on the broad ocean of universal Death. 
Then, in 40th verse, He said : " Ye will not come to me, 
that ye might have life." Then again, in Romans Hd 
chapter and 6th verse, we read that " God will render to 
every man according to his deeds." And how is that? 
Why, " To them who by patient continuance in well doing 
seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life." 
So plainly and positively does every passage of Scripture 
that speaks of Eternal Life, teach us that it is the opposite 
of Everlasting Death, that the frivolity which is offered as 
evidence to prove that the wicked, after suffering the Sec- 



61 

ond Death, shall live in a Hell of Fire and Brimstone, 
amounts to about as much as directing the mind to the 
stars at noonday, and trying to make it appear that they 
outshine the sun in his dazzling refulgence. 

But to continue the consideration of the subject, we turn 
to the Vlth chapter, 20th to 23d verses, and read : " For 
when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from right- 
eousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof 
ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. 
But now being made free from sin, and become servants to 
God, ye have your fruit unto holiness,^ and the end ever- 
lasting life. For the wages of sin is death ; but the gift of 
God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

Here, in the 21st verse, the Apostle asks the question : 
" What fruit had ye in those things whereof ye are now 
ashamed ?" And then says he, " The end of those things 
is death." What death, — the termination of the natural 
life ? Surely not, for that terminates with all. It would 
have been nonsense for the Apostle to have told them that 
the end of those things was Temporal Death; and if he had 
told them that the end of those things was an Everlasting 
Life, — the next verse would be an extract of nonsense. 
Therefore it was the Everlasting Death which he was speak- 
ing of, the only antidote for which, is, Eternal Life. 

Now, in the face of all this, how foreign to common 
sense, and how belittling to the Scriptures, to say that the 
Second, or Everlasting Death, will be an Everlasting Life, 
an Eternal Burning in a Lake of Fire and Brimstone! It 
is exactly parallel with saying that the Eternal Life prom- 
ised the faithful, means Everlasting Death. And when we 
look at the attributes of God, and the horrid nature of the 
teaching referred to, the latter is found to be more con- 
sistent than the former. 

But now turning to the Vth chapter of 1st John, 10th to 
18th verse, again we see with what persistency the Eternal 



^,9 

Life is adhered to, and with, what precision it is presented 
as the antidote for Everlasting Death. Says he : '• He that 
believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he 
that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he 
believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And 
this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and 
this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son, hath life; 
and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life. These 
things have I written unto 3^ou that believe on the name of 
the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, 
and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." 

Here we have Eternal Life twice repeated, and thrice 
referred to. But is it expressed or referred to in such a 
manner as to convey the idea that it is something we cannot 
escape ? Far from presenting such an idea! Such, however, 
is the teaching of those who have metamorphosed the truth, 
or rather, have, for it, substituted the herculean heresy of a 
Burning Hell between Death and the Resurrection, and the 
diabolical teaching, concerning the situation of the wicked 
thereafter. For they teach, that notwithstanding that the 
wicked, at the resurrection, (according to their doctrine,) 
will have been Burned in Hell for thousands of years, they 
shall, at the judgment, be tried, and then punished with 
— not Death, but an Everlasting Life in Flames of Inde- 
scribable Torment. But the Apostle, it seems, did not 
even imagine that humanity would even taint their lips with 
such a falsehood; but he limited the possession of Eternal 
Life, told who had it, and how it was to be obtained; and 
clearly showed that by obtaining it, they should escape from 
the mighty expanse of universal Death. For, said he: "This 
is the record, that God hath given us eternal life, and this 
life is in his Son;" and then said he, "He that hath the Son 
hath life ; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not 
life." Then He gave them plainly to understand that to 
know that they had Eternal Life was enough for them 



53 

to know, in order to complete their happiness; for that it 
was the reward of all their believing and doing. Therefore 
we see that if they had not obtained Eternal Life, they would 
have remained on the broad ocean of Everlasting Death; 
and that the Everlasting Life is salvation from Everlast- 
ino^, — What ! Life ? How ridiculous ! But how consistent 
to say, from Everlasting Death ? 

Now, turning to Philippians, IVth chapter, 3d verse, 
What do we see ? Why, the Book of Life. Yes ; and how 
does this phrase, Book of Life, ring out the death knell of 
this contrariety which makes Death Life, and Death and 
Life Eternal Life ? Eepeat the phrase, Book of Life. How 
indicative it is ? How^ plainly it shows that the object in 
having such a book, is, that those whose names are written 
therein, are saved from Everlasting Death. And how 
plainly we can see what Paul thought of this Book of Life, 
when he said : " I entreat thee also true yoke fellow, help 
those women which labor with me in the gospel, with 
Clemet also, and with others of my fellow laborers, whose 
names are in the book of life." Why did he attach so much 
importance to their names being in the Book of Life? 
Why, because he knew that as their names were in the 
Book of Life, they had been numbered with those who 
were sure of escaping Everlasting Death ; as shown in 
Revelation, Hid chapter and 5th verse : " lie that over- 
cometh, the same shall be clothed with white raiment; and 
I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I 
will confess his name before my Father, and before his 
angels." 

Here we see the sittiation of the righteous; their names 
are in the Book of Life; and, at the time of reckoning, Jesus 
will confess their names before His Father, and before His 
angels; and then, being forever freed from the power of 
Death, they will enter into Life Eternal, and thus escape 
the Everlasting Death, which will be the Everlasting Pun- 
ishment of the wicked. 



54 

IN'ow, turning to Mark, Xth chapter, 17th verse, with a 
look at one srreat sti-us^o^le for Eternal Life, I will relieve the 
reader from this part of the discourse. 

Here we not only find men who are willing to accept 
Eternal Life, but, " when he was gone forth into the way," 
says ^lark, " there came one running, and kneeled to him, 
and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may 
inherit eternal life?" Yes, "inherit eternal life." But 
what does this prove ? Why, it proves that he had become 
eonvinced that all men were or had been on the broad ocean 
of Everlasting Destruction ; and that, unless he were res- 
cued from it, nothing but Death was before him. It is 
equivalent to saying, Oh Lord, I am satisfied that outside of 
the redemption that is in Thee, all is Death. Therefore, Oh 
Lord, make me an object of Thy favor, and tell me how I 
may escape it ! But what a ridiculous figure he would have 
presented if he had said. Oh Lord, I know that all shall live 
Eternally, but do tell me what I shall do that I may inherit 
Eternal Life ! 

'Now, who could face the realities of God's word as they 
have been presented in the preceding, and not shrink from 
saying that Life, and not Death, is what we shall escape by 
inheriting Eternal Life? They may face the realities of 
fiendful imao^iuations, but thev can never stand with, such 
unholy teaching before the reality of the Divine Word. It 
is a sword of rebuke unto them, the opposite of all such 
fabrications. 

But in order to hide from man the reality of his nature, 
the Apostatized Church taught, and it is still taught, that 
the spirit of man is, in itself, an entity. They tell us that 
man dies, and that his spirit is conveyed, either to heaven, or 
to hell; and that this spirit is, in reality, immortal man. 
They tell us that the spirit is the life, the reason, the soul, 
all the mental capacity, and, in fact, the whole being, except 
the fleshy shell with which it is clothed ; and that, when 



55 

death releases it from this, it is unclothed, immortal human- 
ity; which, if it were visible, would be found to possess all 
the peculiarities of the person whose spirit it is. They 
teach that, as the larvated caterpillar perforates its cocoon 
and comes out a butterfly, just so, at death, man deserts his 
mortal shell and wings his way to the sunny region of 
immortal joys. 

Now, no matter how much this teaching is disguised, this 
is the reality of the case; and is, in substance, the doctrine 
of the heathen philosophers to the effect that death is but 
the dropping of the cumbersome part of man's immortal self, 
that rustic shell which excludes him from the liberty which 
his immortal self is fitted for, independently of the resur- 
rection, he being of just such a nature, that Death, instead 
of being a reality of punishment, is the gateway to Eternal 
Felicity.* 

This is the doctrine of those who scout the teaching 
of Job, when he says: "Man lieth down, and riseth not: 
till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be 
raised out of their sleep." Hence, instead of accepting 
God's word, thej^ tell us that man is not as the flood that 
decay eth and drieth up, but that he is as the tree, which, 
though cut down, will shoot forth as a plant. And thus the 
realities of the Scriptures are spurned from them, and the 
productions of apostasy are presented in their stead. 

Again, while condemning the teachings of Job, by main- 
taining the doctrines of the heathen, they do not escape 
telling us that Paul is a liar, — that there is no truth in what 
he has taught concerning the future state, — that his ideas of 
the resurrection are erroneous, — that we cannot rely upon 
what he has said in reference to the resurrection of Jesus; 
and that he is not to be believed when he says that in the 
absence of the resurrection, those who have fallen asleep in 
Christ have perished. Yea, when he tells them that Death 

*For proof of this the reader is referred to the teachings of Plato, Socrates, Cicero, 
or, to those of any other heathen writer who has treated the subject of futurity. 



56 

is a reality, they spurn it from them, and by teaching that 
Death is the gateway to a glorious future, they make void 
his declarations, and might as well say that what Festus 
told him is true; that his teaching to the effect that the 
dead are not alive in heaven, but that they are in their 
graves, and that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, 
is the wild imagination of a madman, instead of " the 
words of truth and soberness." 



LIFE, AN EXISTENCE: DEATH, A NON-EXISTENCE. 

But that we may more clearly see that, as Life constitutes 
an existence, so Death constitutes a non-existence, we turn 
to the YIth chapter of Romans, and read : " For when ye 
were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. 
What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now 
ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now 
being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye 
have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life* 
For the wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God is eternal 
life through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

Kow, how conspicuously is the discrimination between 
Life and Death presented before us ? (But what a shame 
that common sense must be brought down to such a level 
as to make it necessary to prove that Death does not mean 
Life !) How emphatically does the Apostle prove that 
Death is that which Life is not, when he says : " For when 
ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteous^ 
ness. What fruit had ye in those things whereof ye are 
now ashamed ? for the end of those things is death. But 
now being made free from sin, and become servants to God^ 
ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting- 
life. For the wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God i& 



57 

eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord " ? He shows us 
that when the}" were the servants of sin, they were free from, 
or had nothing to do with righteousness. Hence the differ- 
ence between righteousness and sin, for Paul shows us that 
sin is that which righteousness is not. But why not sin be 
righteousness as much as Death is Life? Verilj-, it is. But 
he continues and says, The end of those things is, — What ! 
Life? Oh no! But why not? Would not a Life in a 
Blazing Hell be as much a reality of Life as a Life in 
Heaven ? Certainly it would ! And, if it were possible for 
such a state of thino-s to exist, those who exnerience Life in 
felicity would be a thousand times behind in desiring the 
continuance of that Life, when compared with the desire of 
the others to have theirs end. But while presenting before 
them the reality of their condition whilst in a state of sin, 
Paul told them that "the end of those things was death ;"''^ 
and then said he, " But now being made free from sin, and 
become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, 
and the end everlasting life." But why should he not have 
said Death ? for if Death in such constructions as the pre- 
ceding, could mean Life, (not that it could mean Life in any 
others,) Life could just as certainly mean Death; for they 
were in sin, and the end of sin was Death. Therefore, to 
say that the Death spoken of meant Life, would be just as 
absurd as to say that the Life spoken of meant Death. 

Again, the dust to which Adam returned, was no more 
Adam after he had returned to it, than it, the same dust, 
had been Adam before he was made of it; and the breath 
of life was no more Adam after it had returned to God Who 
gave it, than it had been Adam before He breathed it into 
him. Hence the absurdity of either the dust or the spirit 
being the man. 

*The render should be careful to dipcriminftte between the First Death, and the 
St'coiid D<"atli ; fur, as is alrn<).-.t useless to say, had they been ever so righteous they 
would have sutJcred the Firsi I>eath. The end of such things, therefore, will be the 
Second, or Everlasting Death ; and the end of obedience to God will be the Second, or 
EverluHting Life. 



58 

God made man of the dust of the ground, and thus made, 
though devoid of all animation, he was man complete. 
Then God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, by 
which he became a living soul ; and therefore, a soul is 
exactly what he was: He was no more than a soul, and 
there is not — there cannot be — either here or hereafter, a 
soul that is anything less. 

THE SPHilT is' yOT THE MAX XOR THE SOUL, 
BUT THE ANIMATING POWER BY WHICH THE 
OXE BECOMES THE OTHER. Therefore, when the 
breath of life goes forth and returns to God Who gave it,* 
the man returns to his dust, and the soul is not in existence. 
But the natural death, or termination of the natural life, is 
but temporal; and this death is experienced by all, and is 
the exact opposite of the life. The life is what we live, and 
the death terminates it; that is, first we live, and then we 
do not live. Hence, as the first, or temporal death is the 
opposite of the first, or temporal life, so the Second Death 
will be the opposite of the Second, or Eternal Life. There- 
fore, to assert that the Second Death will be an Eternal 
Life, would be just as conspicuously false, as to say that the 
Second, or Eternal Life will be an Everlasting Death. There 
would not be a shadow of difi'erence between the two asser- 
tions. But Life means Life, and Death means Death. As 
one constitutes an existence, so the other constitutes a non- 
existence. As the saint will be rewarded with the Second, 
or Eternal Life, so the sinner will be punished with the 
Second, or Everlasting Death ; for, as the Psalmist has 
declared, " The wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the 

*Very important to understand, here, is the fact that it is not necessary for the 
spirit, or hreath of lile to go to lieaven. in order to return to God; for God is every- 
where. The spirit is what God breathed into man ; and therefore, when it returns, it 
goes back, just what it oame ; not something that has become corrupt, but anirantion ; 
that which did not con^titute any part of man, but what made animate the man, after 
he had been made. 

It is not the animation or hreath of life that fails, but the organism when worn out, 
will no longer run ; and thus the animation is— not destroyed, but forced out; and thus 
out. has — but not as the superlative of humanity, or a sinful, sunken, miserable wretch 
wlio came from the nostrils of the Almighty, returned to God Who gave it. And as the 
spirit is the animating power, and only such, the reason why a man Ijves. is because 
he is animated, and the reason why a man is dead, is because he is not animated. 



59 

Lord shall be as the fat of lambs : they shall consume ; into 
smoke shall they consume away." 

That the wicked shall consume into smoke, in the lake 
of fire, and that the above-mentioned passage refers to that 
event, is both plain and positive. For, at the consumma- 
tion, there will be but one generation of the wicked 
together; and the destro3'ing of them temporally will not 
fulfill the above-mentioned destruction. But, in the 38th 
verse of this, the XXXVIIth Psalm, David tells us when it 
shall be fulfilled ; for says he : " The transgressors shall be 
destroyed together : the end of the wicked shall be cut off." 
Therefore, the time when the wicked " shall be cut ofif," 
will be, when, in the lake of fire, " the transgressors shall 
be destroyed together;" and when, after the last resurrec- 
tion, they will be together for the first time. 

Adam was punished with temporal death, and therefore, 
at the resurrection he will live again ; for that event will 
terminate the time that he is to remain dead. But those 
who refuse salvation through Christ, will be punished — not 
for Adam's, but for their own sins, with Everlasting Death; 
that is, the one has been consigned to the First Death, to 
not live again, for a time; the others, as has been decreed, 
shall die the Second Death, and not live again at all. 

These are the simple realities of the Scriptures concern- 
ing the present and the intermediate states; and the plain 
teaching concerning the reward of the righteous, which is 
Eternal Life, and the punishment of the wicked, which will 
be Everlasting Death. 

But after tlie Church had apostatized and become corrupt 
to such an extent that selfish greed and tyranny prevailed, 
and their consciences had become as seared with a hot 
iron, in order to carry out their tyranny and establish the 
supreme dominion of the Apostatized Church b^^ bringing 
the necks of the Laity under the iron heel of the Clergy, 
they added to their already accumulated stock of heathenish 



60 

dogmas, the damnable heresy of an Eternal Burning in a 
Hell of Fire and Brimstone, where tliey would enter at 
death, and be punished thenceforth and forever; by means 
of which, and the heresy of the Wafer, or handling God with 
their hands, they made the Laity subjects of their extortions 
all the days of their .lives, and shared much of their fortunes 
at death. 

But how this doctrine of Eternal Burning has continued, 
how it exists so generally, is truly mysterious! How men 
can lift their eyes towards heaven and declare that God has 
appointed as a punishment for the erring of our race, a 
Lake of Fire and Brimstone; in which they shall Burn 
Eternally in order to Gratify His Vengeance, without ever 
being able to Satisfy it, is strange indeed ! and aside from 
w^illful perversion, cannot be accounted for, except that, as 
was the case with Luther and the Wafer, instead of being 
an impression of the usual cast, it has been so powerfully 
forced upon man from youth to okl age, through many gen- 
erations, that it has become an indentation of the mind that 
nothing can smooth ; so that everything that crosses it 
must bend to this unnatural curvity. 

Yet it is, nevertheless, an abominable heresy, and more 
foreign to the attributes of the Almighty, than is the tiny 
switch of a tender mother, to the ruthless club of a midnight 
assassin. But not only do the Scriptures condemn the doc- 
trine of Eternal Torment, but those who teach it, prove by 
their actions in their dealings with one another, that such 
cruelty, instead of belonging to God, is foreign, even to 
man. For were a woman to commit a crime against her 
husband, and he punish her by holding her hand in the fire 
until the fiesh burned off the bones, he w^ould be pro- 
nounced one of the most cruel beings in the world ; and if he 
were to escape justice, he would be hunted as a wild beast; 
and when brought to trial and condemned, he would be 
pronounced worthy of thrice the punishment that the law 



61 

could inflict. And he would have been tried and con- 
demned by men, most of whom, perhaps, believed that 
God would take that same woman, for that same crime 
that she had committed against her husband, and put — 
not only her hand, but her whole self into a Lake of 
Fire and Brimstone; — not for half an hour — not for a 
day — not for a year — nor for ten thousand years only, 
but for all Eternity. Also that this Burning of her in 
SL Blazino; Hell would be so as^reeable to the determina- 
tion of the Almighty that no pity could be excited, no 
mercy shown ; but that, there, in that Lake of Fire she 
should gnash, and groan, and wail Eternally. Oh! how 
horrid the picture! And what a terrible crime, even in 
the light of their own actions, to charge God with such 
cruelty ! 



A LOOK AT THE CHARACTER OF GOD. 

But now let us look at the character of God — not as 
blackened with the smut of Eternal Burning, but as He has 
revealed Himself unto us. 

The most severe of all the attributes of God, is Justice ; 
and this Justice was manifested at the beginning, when, 
,^fter man, as a free agent, had been placed in the garden, 
and it was said unto him : " Of every tree of the garden 
thou mayst frecl}^ eat : But of the tree of the knowledge 
of good and evil, thou slialt not eat of it: for in the day 
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." 

We here see, tliat, had man obeyed, he would have lived. 
But he disobeyed, and the sentence of Death was pro- 
nounced upon him, thus: "Because thou hast hearkened 
unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of 
which I commanded thee, saying. Thou shalt not eat of it: 
cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow shalt thou eat 



62 

of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall 
it bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt eat the herb of the 
field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till 
thou return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken : 
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." 

" Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." This 
dissolution, this returning to what he had been made of^ 
this, and this only, is death; and this is the severest pun- 
ishment that God has ever yet inflicted, or ever will inflict 
upon man. 

Kow, to the Advocates of Eternal Torment, I would say : 
Why did not God tell Adam that in the day in the which 
he ate of the forbidden fruit he should be consigned to an 
Eternal Life, in the Flames of a Literal Hell? Did He 
want to deceive Adam ? Can you account for your doc- 
trine ? You may, through the lower channels of heathen- 
ism, but not in God's word ; it all testifies against you. 
Yea, instead of giving you an inch of ground to stand 
upon, it sweeps you from its face, and places your doctrine 
among the damnable heresies which the Apostle foresaw 
would be brought into the Church ; and plainly shows that 
of all that are damnable, it is about the chief. 

Having now seen the extreme of God's severity, in Rigid 
Justice, let me ask : Has man nothing to look to God for 
but Justice ? What does the Apostle say ? Why, " looking 
for the mercy of God unto eternal life." What a modifica- 
tion ! Not looking for mercy only, but " for the mercy of 
God unto eternal life." 

But let us go to the beginning, and see what is the first 
thing presented to our minds as transpiring in relation to 
man. Is it a manifestation of the work of Torment? 'No; 
but of Love, the Love that God bore towards man before 
he was in existence, and which " is manifested," as the 
Apostle says, "in these last times." Yea, even the mani- 
festation of His Love in that "he gave his onl}^ begotten 



63 

Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life." 

Now, what is shown of the attributes of God by this? 
Does it not manifest the existence of Love towards us that 
cannot be equalled, and that before we were in existence? 
It is manifest that God had such great Love towards us that 
He made wonderful provision for us; even such, that, if 
man should, as a free agent, choose evil rather than good. 
He would suffer His only begotten Son to die, that after 
man had sinned against Him, he might escape Everlasting 
Death, through this wonderful provision; which, it is evi- 
dent, could have been the production of nothing but the 
superlation of Love. 

Here we see unparalleled Love in God the Father, in that 
before we were in existence. He made provision for us by 
the foreordaining of His beloved Son. "And when the full- 
ness of the time was come," or when the fall time had 
come, '■'"while ive were yet sinners^ God gave His Son to die 
for us, that wx might not Perish, but have Everlasting 
Life;" that, although w^e had become estranged from Him 
through the disobedience of Adam, and our own sins, 
through sanctification of the Spirit and the sprinkling of 
the blood of Jesus Christ, He might make possible our obe- 
dience; and, by accepting this obedience, brought about 
through Christ, as a substitute for that which He had 
required of Adam, bring about our salvation. What Love ! 
Who can express it! Language cannot tell how He loved 
us! Nothing but a full view of ourselves, a look to Geth- 
semanc, and thence to Calvary, can make us understand it. 

Yet, although God the Father had all this Love for us 
before we were in existence, and has manifested it unto us, 
the Advocates of Eternal Burning declare that He possesses 
that Insatiable Vengeance which the most terrible torment 
that the mind is capable of conceiving, cannot satisfy. And 
then they claim that by thus teaching, instead of sinning 
against Him, they glorify Him. 



64 

This, though damnable, it seems that, in many, is blind 
heresy. 

But not only has the Father done all that is presented in 
the foregoing, but, without respect of person, lie reaches 
forth in the Unlimited Capacity of Himself, and speaks to 
^11; urges them to repentance, presses the necessity of faith 
in tbe Atonement, and thus draws them to the Mighty 
Succorer, whose arms are ever open to receive them. 



THE MIGHTY SUCCOREB. 



Now, as this Mighty Succorer is the Son of Mary, let us 
pause awhile, that we may see God as revealed in Jesus 
Christ. For, having been forever freed from the power of 
death, with all power conferred upon Him, He is the Mighty 
Ood to Whom His Father, Jehovah, has committed all judg- 
ment. "For the Father juclgeth no man, but hath com- 
mitted all judgment unto the Son;" and therefore the Son 
is Judge. And in this Judge we have — not only Omnis- 
cience, but Human Sympathy therewith combined; for 
God "hath appointed a day in the which he will judge 
the world in righteousness by that MAN whom he hath 
ordained." 

Now, what kind of a character did He manifest during 
His natural life? Did He manifest hatred towards man- 
kind? Did He curse Jerusalem? No; but He wept over 
it. And again, while yielding His life upon the cross, refer- 
ring to His murderers. He said : " Father, forgive them ; for 
they know not what they do !" 

And is this the one who will consiofn the errins; of 
humanity to Eternal Burning in the Flames of a Literal 
Hell ? Were they to say. He will remove even the pangs 
of the Second Death, they would have the better side of the 
question. 



I 



\ 



65 

But, though God can be just, '' and the Justifier of them 
that believe in Jesus," He cannot be just, "and the Justifier 
of them " that reject His Unspeakable Gift, and refuse to 
believe on Him that thej may have Eternal Life. There- 
fore they must reap the reward of their doings, and suffer 
the punishment of Everlasting Death. 

Again, Jesus says : " Therefore doth my Father love me, 
because I lay down my life for the sheep." What did Pie 
lay down His life for ? Why, He laid down His life for the 
sheep. And who were the sheep ? Why sinners were the 
sheep. Hence we see that " while we were yet sinners, 
Christ died for the ungodly." He did not die for a single 
act of righteousness of any rnan's, but He died for sinners. 

God loved sinners before Christ died, and still loves sin- 
ners; and Jesus, Who bled and died for sinners, now^ sits at 
the right hand of God the Father, Who always loved sin- 
ners, to plead with the Father for sinners. Therefore we 
see that the work of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost, is all love, and that to sinners. 

Yet, aside from mercy and love, the case of the sinner 
will be parallel with that of Adam's,* Adam failed to obey, 
and God punished him with that which He had warned him 
that He would inflict, and that was Death; which is just 
what He has warned the descendants of Adam that He will 
inflict upon them, if they do not obey Him in the Gospel of 
His Son Jesus Christ; the only difterence being (except as 
regards duration) that which any one can understand who 
can count two, or know^s the diflterence between first and 
second; for the one is the First Death, and the other will 
be the Second Death. 

Now, as all that God has manifested towards us in the 
work of redemption is Love, how clearly it is to be seen that 
the least punishment by which the wicked can be made an 

♦Though Mercy and Love, both preceded and followed his fall, Adam, in the Garden 
was dealt with in accordance with Rigid Justice. 



66 

example and forever removed from the righteous, is tliat 
which God will use; yea, is that which He has chosen. 
And manifest it is, that that least will be the Second Death ! 

But those who sneer at the idea that Death is Death, even 
in the face of all the Love that God has manifested towards 
sinners — in the face of the fact that the Son of God, will- 
ingly and of Himself, laid down His life for sinners, turn 
and tell us that the destruction of the wicked would be but 
a shadow of punishment in the sight of the Almighty. 
They tell us that ten thousand Deaths would be but as a 
beginning of their punishment; and that nothing can gratify 
the Vengeance of Jehovah but the Eternal groanings of the 
wicked in Flames of Literal Fire. ' Therefore they teach 
that incomparable punishment, compared with which the 
punishment that God will inflict, is as the dust of the bal- 
ance, or the slight glimmering of a shadow. Yea, the hor- 
rid torment, the unceasing misery which they tell us that 
God has in store for erring humanity,* is that which the 
wildest imagination, the most hyperbolical capacity with all 
its powers concentrated, could not possibly magnify; and 
this they present before us as that which, and which only, 
can gratify the Vengeance of the Almighty; and, sa}^ they, 
even that can never satisfy it. Oh that they would see their 
sin ! And now I repeat. Thanks be to God that such teach- 
ing is not mine ! 

Again, how does the doctrine of Eternal Burning affect 
the character of Jesus when we regard Him as what, in 
reality. He is, our brother — a real — a natural brother, — 
flesh, as our flesh — bone, as our bone; and when we view 
Him as our Great High Priest, who can be touched with a 
feeling of our infirmities; and when we remember that He 
is the Organism of Sympathy between God and man ? It 
takes from His glory. It is a reproach unto Him; — His 
teachings prove it such. 

*This, however, according to their doctrine, was commenced nearly six thousand 
years ago. 



67 

Who cannot see that if Jesus should consign the erring 
of our race to Eternal Burning in a Hell of Literal Fire and 
Brimstone, He would, by that act, cause ten thousand times 
more miser}^ than all that He would have accomplished in 
behalf of humanity could possibly amount to ? The misery 
would outbalance, ten million times, all that the righteous 
could possibl}^ enjoy ! 

No wonder that there are so many skeptics ! No wonder 
that so many of the higher order of intellects, have, through 
this direful dogma, rejected the Scriptures, and spurned 
such teachings from them as unbefitting well-balanced 
minds ! 

And still again, How does this monstrosity appear v^hen 
we look at ourselves, and say : Could we do this, could we 
consign our brethren to the Flames of an Eternal Hell? 
"We miglit look at the destruction of the wicked, and say. It 
is but justice; and then we would cease. Hence, thou, how 
terrible to charge Jesus with being capable of consigning 
His Adamic brethren to the Flames of an Eternal Hell ! 

But why dwell longer upon this ? Why should all the 
facts of Scripture be gathered to disprove sucli an unreason- 
able, unholy doctrine; — a doctrine that charges a God of 
Justice, a God of Mercy, yea, even a God of Love with 
possessing that Insatiable Vengeance wliicli nothing but tlie 
groanings of the victims of a Blazing Hell can gratify ? 
Again, I say, why dwell upon this? What have they to 
support such an idea? What is the basis of this unholy 
doctrine? It is based upon the positive falsehood that 
Death means Life. It was founded upon the destruction of 
truth; it was reared upon the ruins of Scripture. 

It says to the " holy men of God " who " spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost," Your teachings are false, 
you have taught us lies. It says to the Inspired Preacher, 
You tell us that the dead know not anything, whereas they 
know all that they knew in this life, and thrice as much 



68 

more. And you, David, tell us that " the dead praise not 
the Lord," Avhereas they are always before Him in heaven, 
and praise Him continually. You say that, in death, there 
is no remembrance of God ; whereas the dead do not only 
remember the Lord, but they are the guardian angels of 
their living friends, and always have them in remembrance. 
You ask, Who, from the grave, shall praise the Lord ? and 
so you show that you know nothing about the dead ; for the 
dead are alive in heaven, praising God amidst the greatest 
felicity, or in Hell, suffering the Torment of Burning 
Flames. You tell us that man's breath goeth forth, that he 
returneth to his earth, and that, in that very day, his 
thoughts perish. You might as well tell us that that is the 
last of him until the resurrection, for you try to make us 
believe that there will be a resurrection. What nonsense! 
Who taught you this ! It is nothing strange that one who 
knows so little as 3'ou do, should believe that "the dead 
know not anything;" it is not the dead, but such as you, 
who know nothing. 

This is what this monstrosity, this fiendish production of 
unscrupulous apostates is founded upon ; and though angels 
from heaven were to declare it truth, it could not be other 
than falsehood. 



THE SAME STORY. 



I^ow, passing from David to Job, we have but a continua- 
tion of the same story; for, says Job, XlVth chapter and 
7th verse : " There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that 
it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will 
not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, 
and the stalk thereof die in the ground; Yet through the 
scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a 
plant." 



1 



69 

Here, Job says " there is hope of a tree, if it be cut 
down ; " and then says he, *' Man dieth and wasteth away •' 
yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" In 
Heaven, or in Hell, say the Advocates of Eternal Burning. 
But Job continues, and might as well say they are liars; 
and if they had preceded him, it is evident that he would 
have done so; for he says: "As the waters fail from the 
sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up; So man lieth 
down, and riseth not : till the heavens be no more, tliey 
shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." 

Now, in this we also see that when thej^ close their eyes 
in Death, this Death is their sleep. But what absurdity 
this would be if the doctrine of Eternal Burning were true! 
Could they sleep in the Flames of Hell ? Or, could they be 
awakened out of a sleep of thousands of years, whilst dur- 
ing that period they had been enjoying the fullness of their 
reward in heaven ? how preposterous the idea that Death 
is not Death, but Life! How belittling to common sense, 
and how foreign to the least shadow of truth, is this teach- 
ing that when a man Dies he does not Die, but is simply 
stripped of just enough of his composition to dev^elop the 
full reality of his immortal self; and that thus freed from 
his rustic tenement, he wings his way to tlie Realm of 
Glory, or, if of the other class, is nevertheless immortal, and 
is driven to the Flames of Hell; when all this is because 
Death is not Death, but Life; because Everlasting Destruction 
means Everlasting Living, where they will not be destroyed 
at all ; and because, when the end of the wicked shall be 
cut off, that will be when they will begin to wish that they 
bad never had a beginning such as never could be cut off. 

But who does not know that when flood is decayed and 
dried up, that it is gone, that it does not exist? And who 
dare say that Job does not teach that this is the case with 
the man ? For he says : " Man dieth, and wasteth away ; 
yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he? " Then ho 



70 

tells us that, " as the waters fail from the sea, and the flood 
decayeth and drieth up ; So man lieth down, and riseth 
not;" and that, "till the heavens be no more, they shall 
not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." 

This amounts to more, (in favor of the sentiments of this 
t>ook,) a thousand times, than all that the Advocates of 
Eternal Burning can produce in favor of their worse than 
heathenish story of a Burning Hell between Death and the 
Resurrection. 

But still Job continues, and says : " that thou wouldst 
keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldst 
appoint me a set time, and remember me !" And so he 
tells us what he knows about Death, and then he asks the 
question : " If a man die, shall he live again ?" Then, as if 
receiving an answer to the effect that he should, he says : 
"All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my 
change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee, 
thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands." 

Thus we are told, and plainly too, that Job asked God 
the question : " If a man die, shall he live again ?" and that 
God told him that he should, and that it should be at an 
appointed time; that then Job desired that God would hide 
him in the grave, and there keep him secret until His wrath 
was past; and that, having received the promise that he 
should not be left there, but that he should come forth at 
the set time, he expressed his confidence in God by saying, 
"Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee;" for I know that 
Thou carest for me, for I am the work of Thy hands. 

But the brazen-faced falsifiers of the Scriptures, in order 
to have Job in heaven, make it appear that he was acting a 
part, little better than that of a bufloon. 

Yet Job continues, and as it were, standing in the pres- 
ence of the Almighty, he sets his seal to what he has said; 
and, in so doing, shows us that the teachings of those who 
say that Death is not a reality, are as false as the fables of 



1 



( 



71 

the heathen. Says he : '' The waters were the stones : thou 
washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the 
earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man. Thou pre- 
vailest for ever against him, and he passeth ; thou changest 
his countenance, and sendest him away. His sons come to 
honor, and he knoiveth it not; and they are brought low, but he 
perceiveth it not of them.^' 

Emphatically is this to the efiect that the case with the 
man is just as Solomon has since declared it to be; that is, 
that "THE DEAD KNOW NOT ANY THING;" and 
also, that their rest is together, in the dust. 

Not once does Job mention such a thing, or even intimate 
such a thing as soaring to the region of glory. But heart- 
stricken, steeped in sorrow, and death staring him in the 
face, he looks at the grave, and then to heaven, and says: 
*' If a man die, shall he live again ? " Then, when the 
answer comes that God will remember him, that he shall 
come" forth at the resurrection, he says: "All the days 
of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come : 
Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee : thou wilt have a 
desire to the work of thine hands." And again, " Though 
after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall 
I see God : Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall 
behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed 
within me." 

So we see that it was Job who lived. Job who died. Job 
who was laid in the grave, and Job who was to wait there 
until the set time. And we see that when he shall have 
€ome forth, it will be the same Job that had lain in the 
grave, or rested in the dust, from the time of his death, 
until the set time, the morning of the resurrection. 

Not once did Job speak of the joys of heaven as before 
him, between Death and the Resurrection. Not once did 
the Fiction of the Fiery Kingdom reach the outermost 
bound of his imagination. The grave only was his hiding- 



72 

place. The remembering of him by the Almighty was his 
comfort, and the assurance that he should be called forth in 
the morning of the resurrection, was his hope. 

Here, again we see how foreign to the teachings of the 
" holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Gbost," is this doctrine that, at death, the righteous 
go to the Realm of Glory, and the wicked to the Flames of 
Hell. Destitute of a shadow of foundation do these truths 
leave this worse than heathenish fabrication ? Positively 
and clearly do they show, that between death and the res- 
urrection, MAI^ KNOWS NOTHING. And clearly this 
proves that the Second Death, instead of being what the 
Advocates of Eternal Burning would have it, an Eternal 
Life, is an Everlasting Death. 

If men, after the first death, were never to be resurrected, 
the first death would be Everlasting, and they would never 
live again. But there will be a resurrection, and therefore 
the first death is temporal. But after the wicked shall have 
been cast into the lake of fire, where ^' the transgressors 
shall be destroyed together," which will be the Second 
Death, there will be no more resurrection; and therefore it 
follows that the Second, will be an Everlasting Death, which, 
and which only, will be the Everlasting Punishment of the 
wicked. Therefore we see that the difierence between the 
punishment which God lias determined as the portion of the 
wicked, and that of an Eternal Burning in a Blazing Hell,, 
is as the difierence between the least that is possible, and 
the greatest that the wildest, the most hyperbolical capacity 
could possibly conceive of. And manifest, therefore, it is, 
that this doctrine of Eternal Burning should be rejected 
— not as only unreasonable and false, but as what, in reality, 
it is, a disgrace to the name of Christianity, and a Scandal 
against the Almighty. 



73 



THE JUDGMENT SCENE. 



Now, turning to Matthew XXYth chapter, we find thirty- 
three verses occupied with the subject of reward and pun- 
ishment. But what do they teach ? What becomes of the 
fiend-like story of the Fiery Kingdom, where the wicked, 
by the Advocates of Eternal Burning, are sent, at death, 
and punished in Flaming Fire? 

You shall see. " When the Son of man shall come in his 
glory, and all the holy angels witli him, then shall he sit 
upon the throne of his glory : And before him shall be 
gathered all nations : and he shall separate them one from 
another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats.'* 
When shall this be ? Why, when '' he shall come in his 
glory, and all the holy angels with him" — not when the 
righteous go to glory, and to the holy angels. 

'^And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the 
goats on the left. Theh shall the King say unto them on 
his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."^ 
And then He tells them why, for what reasons they shall be 
thus rewarded; for He says, " I was a hungered and ye gave 
me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a 
stranger, and ye took me in : Naked, and ye clothed me : I 
was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came 
unto me." 

But do we hear the righteous say. Yes, Lord, we did so, 
and wish that w^e had done more ; for we have been richly 
rewarded by the enjoyment of heaven for thousands of 
years, and we bless the day, when, through the gate of 
death, we escaped from the sorrowful scenes of earth, to 
the felicitous region of Eternal Glory ? Is this their answer? 
No. This is the story of the Fabulists. But now let us 
have theirs. 



74 

" Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, 
when saw we thee a hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, 
and srave thee drink? When saw we thee a strans-er, and 
took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw 
we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?" Does this 
look like having been enjoying the reward of their doings 
for centuries? What surprise they manifest at the solution 
of the matter? But not a word do we hear from them con- 
cerning the intermediate state. 

So, when Christ shall have come in His glory, and all the 
holy angels with Him, and shall have sat upon the throne 
of His glory, and shall have had all nations before Him, and 
they shall have been separated, and everything settled, then, 
for the above-mentioned reasons, the righteous shall enter 
upon their reward — not as the shadows of what they had 
been, but as resurrected and glorified humanity. 

Then the wicked will begin to inquire why they are to be 
punished. Poor creatures! -Tormented for thousands of 
years in a Blazing Hell, and will have just found out that 
they are to be punished! But passing this for the present, 
we see that the wicked shall be punished for the opposite of 
that for which the righteous shall be rewarded, and that 
both reward and punishment will not precede, but follow 
the coming of Christ in His glory, accompanied by His holy 
ano'els. 

But how foreign to all this is the doctrine that, at Death, 
the righteons pass to the Eealm of Glory, and the wicked 
to the Flames of Hell? If those wicked ones had been 
Burned in Hell for centuries, Why did they not say some- 
thing about it? Why did they not so much as say, Lord, 
we have been Burned in Hell for five hundred years, will 
not that suffice ? Surely, if they had been, some a thousand, 
and some six thousand years suffering the Torment of Burn- 
ing Flames, they would at least have ventured to mention it 
before a righteous judge, as a reason why they should not 
have been punished longer ! 



75 



THE RESURRECTED. 

But now we will pass from visions of the future, to scenes 
that have been witnessed upon earth. 

Where are the stories of those who have been raised from 
the dead ? What did the Child tell Elijah concerning the 
sunny region where he flapped his angel wings and soared 
around and through the heavenly throng and feasted his 
infant vision with beholding the unspeakable glory of the 
abode of the ransomed ? Did he say, Oh Elijah ! you have 
blessed my mother, but you have cursed me ; for you have 
torn me from the bosom of angels and again brought me 
into this sorrowful world ? Was this his stor}^ ? No. He 
died, and then was brought to life again; and when this is 
said, his story is fully told. 

But let us go on. Where did the Widow's Son say he 
had been ? Where are the beauties of the heavenly reo:ion 
as pictured by him when Christ raised him from the dead ? 
Did he frown upon the world and say, that I were with 
them again that I might again partake of the joys of immor- 
tality in that heavenly region whence I came? Poor crea- 
tures who have such a faith to sustain ! they could do much 
better with Socrates or Plato, than they can with the Bible. 

Again, how is it that we hear nothing concerning this 
matter from the Chief, as it were, of the resurrected, the 
beloved Lazarus ? Was he not a spectacle to the whole 
Jewish nation ? Were not the eyes of all directed towards 
him ? How is it, then, that we do not hear from him upon 
this subject? Why did he not tell those skeptical Jews 
that whilst his body was lying in the grave, his soul, or all 
that he had been, except the fleshy shell that lie left behind, 
was felicitating in the realm of glory, amidst the angelic 
Jiost and those who had gone before him ? Why did he not 
thus present Deatli before them as the beginning of a glorious 
Life, as do the Advocates of Eternal Burning, who never 



76 

had an opportunity of viewing the other side of the grave, 
as they call it; for he had been dead, and raised from the 
dead, and was then before them? But no, not one word 
do we hear from him, of either Heaven, or of Hell ! It was 
Lazarus who had been raised from the dead. It was the 
one to whose grave the mourners had followed Jesus, and 
it was thence, they knew He had brought him. They 
knew of nothing else, they thought of nothing else. It was 
not the one who had been brought down from heaven, but 
the one who had been brought forth from the grave ; the 
one who had been dead and knew nothing for four days, 
and of course told them nothing, because he had nothing to 
tell. And those who were present, being ignorant of the 
fabulous stories of the ages of apostasy, or acquainted with 
such teachings, only as heathenism, did not so much as ask 
him a single question concerning the glories of Heaven, or 
the existence of a Burning Hell. 

IS^ow, where would have been Christ's glory in raising 
Lazarus from the dead, if the present day teaching had 
been His ? Why should He have wanted to make those 
loved ones miserable by bringing their brother from the 
glories of heaven to re-occupy that decaying shell and again 
dwell amidst the sorrows of earth? Why did He not say 
to those Aveeping ones. Dry up your tears, your brother is in 
heaven ; the shell which you have laid in the grave is as 
nothing; it would be cruelty for you to have him brought 
back, or for Me to call him from that holy, happy place? 
But was this His comforting ? !N"o. Yet it is evident that 
if such comfort had been in existence, they would have 
received it; for He loved Lazarus and those who mourned 
over him. His sympathy united with the sympathy of those 
weeping ones, and He wept; yea, even groaned within 
Himself. But He did not weep because Lazarus was in the 
vigor of immortal bloom, amidst the glories of heaven, but 
because he was dead and in the grave; and therefore His 
comforting was, " Thy brother shall rise again." 



I 



77 

And how plainly does the fact that there was not a single 
question asked concerning the whereabout of the soul of 
Lazarus during the time he had been dead, show that those 
Jew^s and Christians did not believe the heathenish stories 
about the souls, or spirits of men being — some in heaven, 
and some in hell? 

It is evident beyond dispute, that, if such a belief had 
existed, the most prominent feature of that gathering 
together unto Lazarus would have been the inquiries con- 
cerning his journey to the celestial clime, and the glorious 
realities of that holy, happy place. 

How plainly does every truth display the falsity of the 
doctrine concerning the righteous being in heaven, and the 
wicked being in hell, between Death and the Resurrection ! 
And how plainly do these truths stand out in bold condem- 
nation of the idea of an Eternal Burning of the erring of 
humanity in Flames of Fire and Brimstone ? For as certainly 
as the First Death terminates the First Life, which fact, 
(that it does,) is so clearly shown by the cases of the resur- 
rected referred to, just as certainly will the Second Death 
terminate the Second Life! 



A SKETCH OF THE TESTIMONY OF PA UL. 

But, again let us see how the doctrine of Eternal Burn- 
ing corresponds with the teaching of the great Apostle of 
the Gentiles. 

Li 1st Corinthians, XYth chapter, commencing at 12th 
verse, we read: "Now if Christ be preached that rose from 
the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrec- 
tion of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, 
then is not Christ risen : And if Christ be not risen, then is 
our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and 
we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testi- 



78 

fied of God that he raised up Christ : whom he raised not up, 
if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then 
is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, your faith 
is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Ihen they also which are 
fallen asleep in Christ are peinshed.^' 

Mark it, reader, it was not the wicked only, but the 
righteous also, who, in the absence of the resurrection, had 
perished! for Paul says: "If Christ be not raised, . . . . 
they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." 

!N'ow, if they had gone to heaven, at death, this assertion 
of Paul's to the effect that in the absence of tlie resurrec- 
tion, those who had fallen asleep in Christ had perished, 
would be a positive falsehood. Therefore we clearly see that 
the place for this doctrine of the immortality of man aside 
from the resurrection, is with the heresies, which, by design- 
ing apostates have been brought into the Church; and that, 
just as in the absence of the resurrection, those who had 
died, would remain dead forever,* just so those who shall 
be punished with the Second Death, from which there will 
be no resurrection, will ever remain dead; and that, thus 
dead, never to be resurrected, they will have been punished 
with Everlasting Death, their Everlasting Punishment. 



A SKETCH OF THE TESTIMONY OF PETER. 

So now, having seen the teaching of the great Apostle of 
the Gentiles, let us see what is said ill reference to this 
question, by the great Apostle of the Jews. 

Now, how disgraceful to the name of Christianit}' does 
tbis doctrine concerning the punishing of the wicked in a 

* It should not be supposed that the phrase, For ever, because the time implied by it, 
was limited according to the nature of the ease in whicn it was employed, (in Bible 
times,) could not have been used in reference to the Deity, and things regarded as 
Eternal. For whilst it was said of God, Who is Eternal and Omnipotent, "Him that 
liveth for ever and ever," it was iilso said, " He is a great God." Hence, For ever, did 
not mean Eternally, any more than Great meant Omnipotent. 



^ 



79 

Flaming Hell for thouyands of years prior to the Resur- 
rection and Judgment, appear, when we look at the plain 
truth as he has presented it before us! For, says this Oracle 
of God, 2d Peter, lid chapter, and 9th verse: "The Lord 
knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to 
reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." 

If, now, it be admitted that this writing is the result of 
Inspiration, or even of what Peter saw and heard while with 
Christ, without direct Inspiration, this, the 9th verse, should 
put to the blush, and silence forever, those who try to make 
it appear that prior to the Resurrection and Judgment, the 
wicked are suffering the Torment of Burning Flames. Here 
they come face to face with Peter, and must condemn him 
as being guilty of falsehood, or be condemned as being posi- 
tively guilty of such, by him. 

But now let us closely compare the teachings of those who- 
tell us that, at death, the righteous go to heaven, and that 
the unjust are sent to hell to be punished in Burning 
Flames, with the language of the Apostle as recorded in the 
above-quoted verse. 

The Apostle tells us that '' THE UNJUST ARE RE- 
SERVED UJSTTO THE DAY OF JUDGMENT TO BE 
PUNISHED;" and therefore shows an interval of thou- 
sands of years between the death of many of the unjust, 
and the time that they shall be punished; and that there is 
none of the dead who have been punished, or who shall be,, 
until after the day of judgment. But those who teach that 
men are immortal, that, at Death, their punishment begins, 
tell us that after they shall have been Burned in a Blazing 
Hell for thousands of years, they shall be brought forth to 
judgment. Hence, for the plain truth as given by Peter,, 
they have substituted just as plain a falsehood; which cer- 
tainly cannot contribute to their salvation, but if, with "the 
light before them, it be persisted in, may prove their Ever- 
lasting Destruction. 



80 



CONCLUDING PART. 

Before taking leave of this subject, I shall once more 
endeavor to bring the reader face to face with this fiend-like 
production of designing apostates ; and, for this purpose I 
shall quote a short passage from one,"^ the researches of 
whose imagination furnish an excellent example whereby 
to illustrate it, and show how foreign it should be to the 
remotest thought of a Christian, to entertain such a horrid 
monstrosity as the Eternal Torment of the erring of 
humanity in Flames of Fire and Brimstone. 

Says he, while dwelling upon the unbounded expanse of 
the "Empire of Omnipotence," "If we would wish to 
acquire some definite, though imperfect, conception of the 
physical extent of the universe, our minds might be assisted 
by such illustrations as the following:- — Light flies from the 
sun with the velocity of nearly two hundred thousand miles 
in a moment of time, or, about 1,400,000 times faster than 
the motion of a cannon ball : Suppose that one of the 
higher order of intelligences is endowed with a power of 
rapid motion superior to that of light, and with a corres- 
ponding degree of intellectual energy; that he has been 
flying without intermission from one province of creation 
to another, for six thousand years, and will continue the 
same rapid course for a thousand millions of years to come; 
it is highly probable if not absolutely certain, that, at the 
end of this vast tour, he would have advanced no further 
than the suburbs of creation — and that all the magnificent 
systems of material and intellectual beings he had surveyed, 
during his rapid flight and for such a length of ages bear 
no more proportion to the whole Empire of Omnipotence, 
than the smallest grain of sand does to all the particles of 
matter of the same size contained in ten thousand worlds. 

* Thomas Dick, LL.D. 



^ 



81 

Nor need we entertain the least fear, that the idea of the 
extent of the Creator's power, conveyed by such a represen- 
tation exceeds the bounds of reality. On the other hand it 
must fall almost infinitely short of it." — Dick. 

Hence, as upon such a tour it would take a seraph, flying 
at the rate above mentioned, a thousand millions of years to 
advance no further than the suburbs of creation, a thousand 
millions of years would be but little more than the begin- 
ning of Eternity. 

JSTow, just as this paragraph is so easily understood, and 
just as it is so positively true, just so plainly and positively 
is the doctrine of Eternal Burning to the effect that, if the 
wicked, after suffering the Torment of Burning Flames for 
a thousand millions of years, should, at the end of that time, 
cry for mercy, and say, Oh God ! we have been Burning for 
a thousand millions of years, cannot Thy Mercy reach us 
now? the answer must be, No; and that ten thousand mil- 
lions of years of just such Torment in Burning Flames will 
not end their sufferings. 

According to this doctrine, as all that the seraph would 
see, would bear no greater proportion to the remainder 
than the smallest grain of sand bears to all the particles of 
matter of the same size contained in ten thousand worlds, 
so the punishment that shall be experienced by the wicked, 
during a thousand million of years, will bear no greater pro- 
portion to that which will follow, than one grain of sand 
bears to all the particles of matter of the same size con- 
tained in ten thousand worlds. 

Nothing, say the advocates of this doctrine, but the Eter- 
nal Burning of the erring of humanity can meet the demand 
of the Almighty, and even that can never satisfy it; for they 
must always be Burning in Hell. Damnable Heresy ! — 
O Scandal against the Almighty! — not only black, but the 
blackest; for were it painted with the smut of hell, it could 
not be blacker ! 



82 

But thanks to Thee, gracious God, Who taught me this to scorn, 
And turned me from night's darkest shade, to golden morn. 
Thanks to Thy name, Justice, Mercy, Love, yea, all combine, 
That this, so foreign to Thyself, is that which is not mine. 

Were I to make, as they have done. Thy truth to be the liar, 
Oh God ! what could I then expect, what would I dare desire ! 
Were I to dare Thyself upbraid, with this, their charge, so dire, 
No portion less would I expect, than hell's consuming fire I 



TAKING LEA VE OF THE SUBJECT. 

In taking leave of this subject, I wish it understood by 
all, that what has been said is directed against no particular 
creed ; but against the errors herein mentioned, no matter 
where taught, to what extent, or by whom believed. 

Furthermore, I wish it understood that, whilst fully 
realizing that there is nothing that comes so near the joys 
of heaven as a clear, clean conscience, not only do I con- 
sider the manner in which I have treated the subject of 
Eternal Torment in the preceding pages, as fully sanctioned 
by the Scriptures, and that the contents of this little volume 
are their unclothed realities, (as far as treated,) but that I 
regard this work as a fully discharged dut}^ in behalf of the 
Holy Word. 

And now, reader, be you who you may, my prayer to God 
for you is, that the light of the Gospel of the Son of God 
may ever shine upon your pathway, show you the difference 
between Inspiration, and Apostasy, and guide you to the 
true goal of the Christian, Eternal Life in the Everlasting 
Kin2:dom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 



INDEX. 



Preface.... 3" 

Introduction 5 

Eternal Burning A Scandal Against The Almighty 7 

Where the Beast and the False Prophet are 9 

Tormented with Fire and Brimstone 13 

For Ever and Ever , 14 

"Their Worm Dieth Not" 15 

There shall be Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth 17 

The Rich Man and Lazarus 18 

The 37th and 38th verses of the XXth chapter of Luke, and the 

28th verse of the Xth chapter of Matthew 25 

The Passages yet to be Noticed 29 

The Spirits of Just Men Made Perfect 30 

The Book of Life, and the Book of Life of the Lamb Slain from 

the Foundation of the World 31 

The Word Bring 34 

Samuel, Saul, and the Witch of Endor 39 

The Other Side of the Question 43 

Commencement of the So-called Eternal Punishment 45 

Life and Death 47 

Everlasting Life and Everlasting Death 49' 

Life an Existence: Death, a Non-existence 56 

A look at the Character of God 61 

The Mighty Succorer 64 

The Same Story... 68 

The Judgment Scene 73 

The Resurrected 75 

A Sketch of the Testimony of Paul 77 

A Sketch of the Testimony of Peter 78 

Concluding Part 80 

Taking Leave of the Subject 82 



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